


It Takes One to Raise One

by Carathay



Series: No One Takes Down Hit Girl but Hit Girl [3]
Category: Kick-Ass (Movies)
Genre: Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:10:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 21
Words: 44,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6198073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carathay/pseuds/Carathay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mindy is now living with Dave Lizewski following the events of Kick Ass 2 and my story, No One Takes Down Hit Girl but Hit Girl.  While searching for meaning in her life, Mindy Maccready finds a six year old homeless girl who can give as good as she gets. It's definitely a new challenge for Mindy as fists won't solve anything here and she has to come to grips with taking care of someone who is just as crazy as she is.  </p><p>Sequel to the incredibly long titled No One Takes Down Hit Girl But Hit Girl. As before, Mindy is telling this story to someone, much as Dave does during the movies, and may swear at or insult you, the reader, from time to time.  It is set after KA2. She is 16 and Dave is 18 and finishing High School in a couple of weeks. They are a couple now and are living together in a Safe House. Title courtesy of Makokam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a crazy year. I'd returned to the city after getting to ride away into the sunset like a hero. I'd seen some bad things and, at least a few times, had my ego handed back to me like a maxed out credit card. I actually managed to shoot myself in the head, on accident, I swear, and suffered the consequences that come from any brain injury. Marcus was gone. He'd left to make sure that he never had to arrest me, god forbid, take a shot at me. Dave and I had fallen in love. Yes, me, in stupid sappy love and totally happy about it. The fact that the sex was great didn't hurt, well, except when it was that 'good' kind of hurting…. Sweet sixteen and never been… umm… What the hell haven't I done?

Just fucking with you. Or, more accurately, Dave.

As I mentioned, Dave and I were together now. I mean, really together. And that meant figuring out a future. I was Hit Girl. No fucking doubt about it. But while that was somewhere between a calling and a job, I still needed to figure out how to have an actual life. Especially as we got closer to the summer. Yay…. Short nights for patrolling and daytime TV that totally sucked ass. It gave me way too much time to think. A few days ago, I had even admitted to myself that marriage and a baby were very real possibilities. I didn't even know who I was anymore. It did force me to keep thinking about the future, which I'd been avoiding for a long time. Marcus invested a lot of time and effort in giving me a chance at a future without being Hit Girl. And, while I decided that his future wasn't the one I wanted, I still had to figure out what I did want.

Monday night, I was out patrolling by myself. Dave was studying for the last push through finals and then High School would be bye-bye. I was of two minds about that. It would be nice once he was totally free to embrace the life we were living. But what if he wanted more? College? Nah, he was passing but his grades sucked. A non-homicidal girlfriend? Seriously, who could be better than me? Someone who could cook? Hmm, that last one was actually possible. I burned pop tarts the other day.

Shit. Note to self. Learn how to cook.

What wasn't so good was that he and I were kind of on separate journeys at the moment. He was going through those normal rite of passage things like finishing high school and I'd totally abandoned the idea. I was Hit Girl, damn it!

And, maybe, a little bored?

Funny how life likes to fuck with you.

Like I said, I was out patrolling and I was walking through an alley that didn't smell TOO much like vomit. Suddenly I heard a scream above me. I looked up to see that some fucktard was plunging a knife into a woman repeatedly up on a fire escape. Like seriously? The knife was coming out her back. Dude, she's already fucking dead. She just doesn't know it yet.

OK, yeah, I felt bad for her, and I'll take care that asshole in a minute, but if you're going to live a violent life, know your fucking job. Kind of harsh, but… Crap. What the hell was wrong with me?

Anyway, the 'impending murder victim' was holding some sort of bundle over her shoulder and trying to keep it out of the path of the knife. I've seen a lot of fights like that and I figured she was trying to keep it from him. In fact, it's probably what had started the fight. She should have just given it to him and lived another day. That or spike his crack pipe with Draino.

I have a tough time identifying with people who can't defend themselves. I feel bad for them but somehow I also feel they have a responsibility to get off their ass and do something about whatever is wrong. Something. Even it if is small. Because if you're going to die, die for a fucking reason.

Well, it didn't really matter why she was defending that bundle. Because she'd lost the fight before I even saw her. And it was my job to punish the bastard responsible. These were my streets and when you did something bad, you didn't get a lawyer or Miranda Rights or a fucking comfy jail cell with three meals a day. You got pain or death, depending on the severity of what you had done. And my mood. And, maybe, just maybe, what time of the month it was. Not that I'd ever admit it to Dave, but beating the shit out of someone was a great way to deal with PMS.

Well, it was. It was like exercise. Kind of….

We weren't 'Off Off Off Broadway', if you know what I mean. Someone might hear us if I wasn't careful. So I quickly decided that being subtle would be a good idea. Like I said, the woman was already as good as dead. No one survives wounds like that. So I took the extra couple of seconds to attach a silencer to the end of my 9mm before I capped Mr. Stabby cleanly in the head. One shot, one kill. I love those fucking Sniper movies!

Just as he popped backward with the stupidest look on his asshole face, the bundle that the woman was holding tumbled off her shoulder. I guess the way she'd protected it with her life inspired me to try to catch it, even if it was probably a bag of clothes and shit that even Goodwill wouldn't touch. It was the least I could do since I'd failed to find her before Mr. Stabby. I dropped my gun and tried not to think about how long it would take to clean it later and polish out all of the scratches. Then I held out my arms.

The bag hit my arms with an audible 'oof'. Holy Fucking Shit! The bag was heavy. I even had to drop to my knees to slow down its fall enough that I wouldn't drop it. I tried to recover and breathe for a minute when the fucking thing began to talk. And cry. Goddamn it, bags aren't supposed to cry!

It turned out that it wasn't a bag. It was young girl, maybe five or six. The clothes she was wrapped in draped around her like a tent, hence the baglike appearance.

"I want my mommy!" screamed the little girl with a not so little voice.

Shit. So much for being quiet. I picked up my gun with two fingers and pulled out a Kleenex to try to get some unidentifiable shit off of it. Then I looked up at her mom, but the amount of blood pouring down from the fire escape said more than any medical exam could that she was gone. So I replied back to her with probably the stupidest thing I could have said. "Sorry, your mommy's dead. That asshole killed her but I killed him." I pointed up at the remains of Mr. Stabby.

The range of emotions that played across her face was epic. Then she settled on anger and screamed "Burn in hell you Mother Fucking Cunt Rag Whore Fucker!" at the corpse of the guy who'd killed her mom. Then she began to use the kind of language that I generally reserved for when the US is losing in the World Cup.

Seriously, United States. Why can't you embrace the brilliance that is soccer? And yes, I know I should call it football but that would just confuse you.

Anyway, the little girl's swearing was impressive but she lost points for using 'fuck' twice in her first sentence. Not that I could criticize too much. All I managed to scream when Daddy was set on fire was "No!" Or something like that. Parts of that night are still a blur. Still, she had potential. And despite my problems with anything or anyone that couldn't defend themselves, I kind of liked her.

But, what to do now? I was at a loss. I needed to get out of there before cops showed up but I couldn't just leave her here all by herself. Then I looked into those eyes that were so full of loss and pain and I knew what to do. My next decision would piss Dave off more than I ever had before. And I knew it was not a wise decision. But, it was the right decision. So, just like a puppy you find alone in a box in front of the grocery store, I couldn't resist taking her home.


	2. Chapter 2

Well, I didn't take her directly home. That would have been stupid, especially since I was still in costume. I backtracked to the alley where I had hidden my normal clothes and tried to preserve my secret identity.

I looked at her nervously. "Look, ummm… Wait here for a few minutes, OK?" I asked, when we got close to where I'd hidden my stuff. "I have to go fight more crime but my partner will come out in a few minutes. She'll find you a place to stay." The girl just stared at me. "She's about my height and kind of sounds like me, but we're totally different people. Wait here, OK?" More staring. I decided that a lack of response indicated agreement and disappeared into the alley to quickly change. It didn't take too long but I didn't want her to disappear so I shoved everything into my bag as fast as I could. I didn't notice that my wig was peeking out.

When I came back out a few minutes later, I tried to pitch my voice a little higher and change my speech pattern a bit. "Hiya kiddy!" I bubbled. "Hit Girl asked me to take care of you. Shall we go get something to eat?"

"How fucking stupid do you think I am?" She yelled back at me. "I'm six, not three, asshole! You're Hit Girl! I don't forget who you are just because you walked out of site for a few damn minutes. Or think you're someone else just because you took off some bullshit mask! What did you do? Get shot in the mother-fucking head?"

She was understandably confused when I laughed uncontrollably at the last comment. Finally I pushed myself back up from brick wall that I had leaned on to catch my breath and looked at her. "Sorry, I had to try. You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Tell them what? That the purple drapes don't match the carpet? Like that's a fucking surprise? I still don't know shit!"

"Drapes?! Carpet?!" I replied, confused. She pointed at the purple wig that was peeking out of my bag and then pointed at my crotch. Then at my regular hair and my crotch. She had to do it two more times before I finally realized what she was saying and started laughing again. I also began to understand exactly why I drove Dave so insane. "Right, sorry. I don't think you're stupid. OK – yes, I'm Hit Girl. But you can call me Mindy. "

"I can fucking call you that? Or that's your name, bitch?" She shot back.

Ok, now I could empathize when Dave said I swore too much. It was kind of difficult to communicate when everything you heard involved 'shits' 'fucks' and 'bitches'. "Yes. My name is Mindy. If you stop swearing, I'll find you someplace to stay. Sound good?"

"My mom just died and I'm alone on the fucking street! Of course it sounds good, you stupid cu.." She began then stopped when she noticed my eyes had flashed from amused to pissed. "Umm, I mean, yes please?"

"Better." I said then looked her over. "Let's get you something decent to wear first."

"You mean pillow cases and fat guy's shirts aren't the height of fashion?" She asked sarcastically.

"No, definitely not." I replied. Better, I thought. Smart ass but without the swearing. I could work with this. So, we headed off for an early morning of food and shopping.

A couple of hours later, her stomach full of breakfast and finally in some decent clothes, she totally blew the tough girl routine by cuddling up next to me in the cab and falling asleep on my lap. We got to safe house and I took her inside. It was a bit of a struggle to carry both her and all of the shopping bags but I was still happy that Dave had already left for school. He'd been worried when I hadn't gotten home at the usual time but a quick exchange of text messages had reassured him that I was OK and just enjoying the morning. I hadn't told him about Bethany yet.

Yes. Bethany. The little ball of attitude and dirt had a cutesy princess type name. Ahh, who was I to judge? 'Mindy' didn't exactly come off as bad ass. I put her on the couch and covered her with a blanket. She instinctively pulled it around her until she was just about cocooned in the thing. Then she was dead to the world and I felt safe enough to crawl into my own bed. Within a minute or two, I joined her in slumber.

Apparently it was still a day for surprises. I was yanked out of sleep by a screeching noise coming from the living room and Dave yelling 'OW' repeatedly. I ran through the door and found Bethany wrapped around Dave's head and pummeling him with all the strength that she had in those six year old arms. I could see that Dave didn't want to hit back but was starting to get tired of being hit in the head and so I jumped into the fight and pulled her off of him.

Almost simultaneously, I got a "What the hell, Mindy!?" from Dave and an "I can take him!" from Bethany. I ordered the fighters to their separate corners and tried to figure out what had happened. It turned out that Dave had gotten home from school and didn't notice Bethany when he went to sit on the couch. He'd almost squashed her and triggered some sort of defensive response. I gathered that she'd been attacked while she was sleeping more than once and that the other times weren't so innocent. Dave just kept staring at me, his expression changing from anger to accusation, to confusion, to amusement and then back through the emotions again. He was kind of like that spinning wheel on 'Wheel of Fortune' and I quickly realized that I'd better stop him at the right spot or I'd end up 'bankrupt'. I tried waiting for amusement to come back around unfortunately he stopped all by himself on anger.

With his emotions barely controlled, Dave started to speak. "What in the fu…" He looked at Bethany, obviously not wanting to swear in front of her but unable to come up with another word. Bethany didn't help things when she helpfully added "Fuck?"

"Mindy, can I see you in the other room?" Dave managed to get out through teeth that must be cracking by now. Then, with more fear then I felt when sneaking into the warehouse to rescue Daddy, I followed him into the bedroom and shut the door.

OK. I was in for it. I'd never seen Dave this angry. Not at me anyway. I sat down on the bed and tried to look as innocent as possible. It didn't work.

"Why is there a kid in the safe house?" Dave asked in a tight voice.

"Girl." I said. "Not kid. Bethany. She's six." I replied, trying to keep things light.

"OK. Why is Bethany in the safe house?" Dave growled.

"She didn't have any place else to go?" I tried, already knowing that it wasn't going to work.

"And why was that?" Dave said, with this feeling that he was waiting for me to fall into the trap so that he could pounce on me.

"Well, there was this fight. And, I managed to pull of one of those 'one shot, one kills' like in that Sniper movie we watched last week…" I tried to explain before Dave interrupted me.

"You killed her Mom?" He said, the accusation almost dripping off the words. I stopped babbling and just sat there in shock. How dare he accuse me of that? How dare he even think it!? When I didn't manage a reply, he continued. "You did! You killed her mom and now you think you can just take her place! Mindy, how in the hell can you…"

This time I interrupted him with a slap. Well, kind of a slap. Most slaps wouldn't send 180 lbs of muscle flying across the room. He looked up at me from the floor. "No! I didn't kill her fucking mom! I killed the son of a bitch that killed her mom! And then the girl fell of the balcony they all were on and I caught her! And then she was crying and then she was swearing then she was eating pancakes and, FUCK IT DAVE! I couldn't just leave her there! I mean, sure, I'm Hit Girl and all tough and stuff, but I'm not a god damn monster! I'm a super hero Dave! Super heroes save people. Or, at least we try." I ran out of energy about the time that I stopped talking.

"So now what?" He asked. The anger had pretty much drained out of him.

I sat back down and put my face in my hands. "Now? I don't know. But I'll figure it out, OK? You've just got to give me some time."

"We." He said. I looked up startled. "We will figure it out. You and I made a deal. We're partners. Equal ones, not screwed up like Batman and Robin. Or Buffy and Xander." I smiled at his Buffy reference.

I dutifully repeated the line from Buffy. "No more butt monkey." Then finding strength in his support, I continued. "Fine. We're partners. We'll figure it out together. And Dave? Thanks. I love you."

"I love you too. Now I'm going to find an ice pack." Dave pulled himself to his feet and opened the door.

He was greeted with a scream of 'Nobody slaps Hit Girl!" and a gunshot that splintered the molding next to the door. She must have pulled one of my pistols from the bag I'd brought my costume home in. Fuck, I knew better than to be that careless with a gun. We both dove for cover and then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince Bethany that I'd slapped Dave instead of the other way around. Dave kept trying to explain it to her rationally while I kept suggesting that he just show her the red hand print on his cheek to prove it. He'd then remind me that if he showed his head, Bethany might shoot it off. I was having fun. I'd never conducted hostage negotiations before and I found it an interesting change of pace.


	3. Chapter 3

That evening, Bethany and Dave became fast friends over a pizza with extra everything and Sponge Bob. Oh my god do I hate that fucking show. Why little kids and teenage guys love it I'll never understand. I just stared at it in disgust and quietly ate my chicken caesar salad. We'd extracted a promise from her that she wouldn't touch the guns again until I'd taught her how to use them. Dave wasn't really happy with that decision. He'd wanted her to promise to never touch them at all. I said that given our line of work, she might need them some day and that I saw no problem with a properly trained kid shooting a gun. He just started mumbling under his breath so I told him he was still being a pussy over almost getting shot. I'm a little surprised he didn't take a shot at me.

Dave and I kept the conversation light, but worked in as many questions about her situation as we could. It wasn't good. Her mom's name had been Anna. She didn't have any other family and had no idea who her dad was. Her mom had managed to stay off the streets most of the time by being a live-in girlfriend to a collection of deadbeats who took the 'beat' part of their name pretty literally. I suppose it isn't exactly the same as prostitution but in my mind, you're still sucking dick for a place to stay. Then again, when you've been beaten down that far, maybe dignity had to take second place to survival. Bethany and her mom had put up with a lot and taken quite a few beatings over the last few years. That pretty much explained her reaction when she thought Dave had slapped me. She'd listened to too many of those arguments and wasn't going to take them anymore.

Thank god she wasn't illiterate; her mom deserved a lot of credit for keeping Bethany in Head Start classes despite their irregular living conditions. She'd only just turned six and was on track to start kindergarten next year. A little late, but not as bad as it could be. She liked a lot of the typical things that a girl her age did. Dolls, kittens, that sort of shit. The fact that she been too poor to really experience them didn't matter. She wanted to be just like the other girls her age.

The problem was, she was on a fast track to disaster. If she went back out on the street, she wouldn't last a week before some pedophile or junkie would punch her ticket. If we turned her over to the state, she'd end up in the wonderful foster care system. And, since she wasn't a baby who'd get adopted right away, she'd probably spend years shuffling between foster parents and group homes. Maybe she'd find someone good; there were some people with good intentions involved. But her mouth and her inability to put up with any shit would likely get her kicked out of anyplace nice enough to be worth staying in. So she was, in her own words, "totally and completely fucked until I can't get fucked anymore." Thank goodness she didn't really know what 'fucked' meant. Or, at least, I hoped she didn't. Oh my god. What if I have to explain that to her someday? I'm not sure I could do it.

Also, I was really going to have to talk to her about not using 'fuck' more than once in the same phrase. Well, except for 'fuck the fucking fuckers!' I like that one.

I knew what to do in the short term at least. I wasn't sending her back out into hell. No fucking way. That only left keeping her. Not like a puppy, but providing her with a home. That had its own list of problems. The safe house only had the main workout room with a mini-firing range on one side, a bathroom, a bedroom, and kind of an open kitchen area near the door. We had enough room in the workout area to make her a small bedroom, but I'd have to hide all of the guns and shit from the contractors again. Balls! Well, it was going to be her room, so she'd help, I guess.I'd better call them tomorrow. And then there was school. I hadn't spent a lot of time there but I did understand how important learning was. Daddy had drilled that into me. But, I wasn't capable of home schooling her. And I couldn't exactly register her for real school if I wasn't a legal parent or guardian. I wonder if my fake ID guy can do ones for kids too? I'd have to find out. Son of a Bitch! ID, birth certificate, something to prove I was a relative, faked shot records… this was going to be really expensive.

It was then that I realized that I wasn't actually thinking short term. You don't build a room for someone who'd only going to stay for a few weeks. Ahh fuck it. The room would still be useful even if we did figure something else out and beyond that, it was just money. Kill a few more drug dealers and I'd make it back. Shit, I needed to get back on that anyway.

The next morning, Dave left for his last real day in school. He had to go in tomorrow as well, but only for like 2 hours. I mean seriously, what a fucking waste of tax dollars! They better not pull that shit with Bethany when she's older. I shoved that thought aside with a shudder. I wasn't part of the fucking PTA yet!

Bethany and I had a leisurely morning watching some anime that I can't pronounce but had lots of violence and not too many young girls in tiny skirts. What the fuck is up with that, anyway? Japanese animators are weird. Brilliant, but weird. We went out for lunch and afterwards, Bethany dragged me to the movies. Or, more specifically, a movie. Apparently, everyone else she knew had seen it and since I had a lot of fucking money, I could stop being a pussy and take her. Her words, not mine. I offered her anything else; she didn't budge. I pointed out that it was already on DVD and that we didn't have to sit in a crappy dollar theatre. She wanted to see it properly. So, I went in kicking and screaming to see Frozen.

Holy fuck. I mean seriously, holy fuck. We left the movie singing. By 'we' I do indeed mean both of us. It was amazing. Best of all – spoiler alert – everyone isn't saved by some asshole prince who just pops in at the end of the film! It was girl power without being a song by the douchebag Spice Girls. We picked up the soundtrack and blue ray at the local mall, then went home and watched it again. Dave came home to me finally tapping into my karaoke bug singing 'Let It Go' at the top of my lungs along with the sing along edition of the film. This basically broke him for about an hour and forced me to ponder the wisdom of letting him laugh at me so often. But I was having fun so I got over it. Plus, later that night, he apologized by eating me out until I almost screamed. I say almost because, if I had screamed, we'd probably have had another gunshot from a barely awake Bethany and I really didn't want that to wreck my orgasm. So I bit my knuckle until it almost bled. But it was worth it. God I love that man's tongue.

Things were just getting interesting when I heard a scream from the main room. I bolted out of bed stark naked, grabbed my favorite Sig Sauer 9mm and opened the door just a crack. There was no assailant. No fight. There was just Bethany wailing and crying into the cushions of the couch and moaning about how she wanted her mommy. I told Dave what was happening and he tossed me my robe while he pulled on some clothes. I walked out and sat on the floor next to her, feeling completely helpless. Now what? I never even knew my mom. Sure, I was proud to have avenged her, but I'd never cried about her. Not like this. Dave was finally decent and since I was frozen just like Anna in the film, he picked up Bethany and let her sob out her heart into his shoulder. Anna… Shit. What was the chance that her mom's name would have been used in Frozen? I guess it finally worked its way through her psyche and come out in her dreams. Her mom was dead. And she really hadn't spent a lot of time mourning her. Dave was amazing. He got her to calm down and then talked to her about how he had lost his mom. And how it was OK to miss her but that life would still go on.

I didn't know how to help and finally left them to crawl into bed. After a few minutes of staring into the darkness behind my eyelids, I just broke down. Tears silently coursed down my cheeks as I thought about the mother that had given me life but I'd never gotten to meet. I kept myself as silent as the grave. Bethany finally went back to sleep and when Dave climbed back into our bed, I clung onto him and mixed my tears with Bethany's on his still damp shoulder. It was time to mourn my mother too.


	4. Chapter 4

I woke up the next morning feeling vaguely hung over. Kind of like I did when I'd drank half a bottle of Daddy's scotch. Bethany seemed to be in a similar state. We managed a breakfast of toast and milk. The idea of orange juice was frankly repulsive. Late last night I'd realized there was something Bethany and I needed to do today. Something I didn't even want to think about. And something that would probably fuck up what little cool Bethany had managed to achieve. We had to go, identify her mother's body, and make arrangement to take care of her.

I suppose we didn't HAVE to, but I knew that if we didn't, someday it would come back and haunt the poor girl. Bethany need to process this loss somehow or she'd go insane. So, I grabbed my fake ID and a big stack of bills. I figured we would need them.

I took Bethany to the coroner's office on my bike. I kind of hoped the thrill of the ride would help her to deal with the devastation this day would bring. It was one thing to see your mother die. To be rescued by a hero who made sure you had food to eat and clothes to wear. It was an entirely different thing to go back to say goodbye.

I'd already talked with Bethany about using a different last name and also saying that I was her mom if asked. I hoped this would be enough to get us out of the police building in one piece. I parked my motorcycle and walked into the office. We spoke with the police official in charge and gave a vague enough description of what we knew that they wouldn't somehow question us in how she died but wouldn't make us look at the wrong body. He accepted the story and told me that a person from the coroner's office would be with me in a minute. It didn't take very before we were ushered into a room that had very little in it except for a metal cart with a sheet draped over it. The mousy little coroner's assistant who had brought us in offered to keep Bethany in the hallway while I went through this. I said no, both because I didn't want to be separated from her and because I wasn't really the one who could identify her. So, then he brought out a beat up wooden box and helped Bethany to stand on it so that she could see. I choked up a little at the thought that not only did they have something for a child to stand on handy, but that it was almost worn out. Apparently Bethany's identification wasn't a rarity.

After a brief warning, the assistant turned back the sheet just enough to show the face. Bethany grabbed onto my arm and squeezed. I know she wanted to break down, but she stuck to the story. "Yes. That's Anna. My… friend's mom." Bethany said in a clear, sad voice.

The man nodded and put back the sheet. Then we went back to the office and I filled out the paperwork to get Bethany's mom released to a funeral home. While Anna had been murdered, the method (stabbing) was certainly clear and they'd already collected any other evidence that they needed. It wasn't too much trouble to get things set.

I'd offered to have her mom buried in a nice cemetery on the edge of the city but Bethany had been adamant that her mom be cremated. Not exactly the response I'd expected from a child of six, but what the fuck did I know about how she was supposed to be reacting? It took a few days and then they called us to come pick up the ashes.

This time, Dave came with us and we took the car. No cheap tricks to try to distract her from grief this time. Dave went inside and came back with the remains. Then we drove out of the city until we found a nice place on top of a hill. We got out and all walked together for while until Bethany decided we had found the right place. I checked the wind direction and then we got ready to scatter her mother's ashes.

I suppose it might sound callous to mention checking the wind, but trust me. If you ever scatter ashes you do not want to do it into the wind. It's disrespectful and just plain gross.

We'd all agreed to say a little something and Dave had agreed to go first. "Hi Anna." He said, trying to keep his voice clear. "I know you loved your little girl. You took such wonderful care of her and made her into an amazing person. My mom took care of me like that and I still remember what it felt like. I'll make sure that Bethany always feels that love and caring. I promise." He looked at me.

"Anna. I'm sorry you weren't one of the ones that I could save. I killed the bastard who did this to you but I don't know if that matters wherever you are now. And while I don't remember my mom at all, I do remember how much my Daddy and Marcus loved me." I glanced at Dave. "And I know how much Dave loves me. So, even with my messed up life, I also know what it is to be loved and cared about. I don't know if I'm ready for this, but I've done a lot of things I wasn't ready for. I…. We… Dave and me. We'll take care of Bethany for you. We'll be OK." Tears fell unheeded down Dave's face and he reached out to wrap his arm around me. Since I was already holding Bethany, this brought the three of us together. Bethany so far was tear free. We stood together for a long moment, and then she moved forward so that she could stand on her own.

"Mommy… Mommy, you know how much I love you. I miss you but I'm glad you're in a place where the bad men can't hit you anymore. Mommy, this is Hit Girl and Kick Ass. Mindy and Dave. They try to make the world a better place. And they love each other, like you loved me and Daddy should have. They'll teach me to be strong so that no one can ever hurt me. They'll take care of me now. I used to watch you worry and wish that there was something that I could do. I used to watch you cry when you thought I was asleep. You looked like the whole world was trying to squish you. Hit Girl offered a nice place to bury you, but I knew that wasn't what you would have wanted. You hated being trapped or underground. You wouldn't even take the subway. You always wanted to be outside and feel the wind. So, this is what I came up with. If it's OK, I'll visit you here sometimes. But now I'm going to try to be happy. Because that's what you always told me to do. And Mommy? It's OK for you to be happy too. "

She looked up at Dave and me. Grief had finally overwhelmed her. I pulled her back to stand with us as Dave opened the container and began to scatter the ashes so that they flew away on the wind. Bethany was trying to speak but was unable to get the words past the sobs. So I spoke for her.

"Goodbye Bethany's mommy. Be happy. Fly free."


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes my life feels like God wants to wrap up one part of my life before he'll move on to working on another. That was how things were with Bethany. She seemed to adjust as well as any six year old really can adjust to her mother passing away so we just focused on the future. We trained for a few days and I started helping her to build up some muscle mass. She'd need it if she was ever going to manage to fight someone without using a weapon. Hell, even with one, she needed the strength and stability to control it. Since hand to hand fighting probably wasn't in her immediate future, I'd also started training her with the smallest .22 caliber pistol that I could find. Her wrists weren't strong enough to handle it for more than a few shots at a time but her aim was decent.

Dave's graduation was on Saturday. Like most high schools, his had let the seniors out about a week early so that they had time to take care of things before the big day. And also because most of the seniors would have skipped those last few days anyway once they were sure they were going to graduate. The excitement around graduation was kind of bittersweet for both of us. Dave knew most of his peers were moving onto futures that didn't involve getting the shit beaten out of you on a regular basis and I was fixated on the fact that I'd never get a graduation day. Sure, I was well on my way to finishing my GED. But that was mostly to prove to myself that I could do it, I mean, it wasn't like I'd need to have it to put on a resume. And even if Dave did make a big deal of it and throw me a party when I finally finished (like the one I was throwing for him), it still wouldn't be the same as walking up to get a diploma. Dave noticed how upset the idea was making me and tried to make excuses for why he couldn't go to the ceremony. I told him "Tough shit, at least I can experience it vicariously through you." And I meant it. Also, I was proud that I used 'vicariously' correctly in a sentence. It proved the GED workbooks weren't a total waste of time.

On Friday night, I had some errands to run to get ready for our celebration on Saturday. And Bethany was going nuts over the idea that she was ready for a patrol. I'd tried to explain that patrolling was 99% boredom matched up with 1% of excitement, but she wasn't buying it. So, I agreed that Dave would take her out. Hopefully four or five hours of wandering through cold empty alleys would persuade her that the conditioning work I was trying to get her to do was worth the effort. I wasn't worried about them because Dave wasn't going to go anywhere that was too dangerous. It was a good compromise.

I was surprised to find Dave sitting on the couch when I got back. He and Bethany had left before me and they hadn't planned to be back until much later. But there he was. Sitting on the couch and fuming. I hadn't been sure exactly how to describe 'fuming' on one of my GED tests but trust me, if I had been able to just attach a picture of Dave right now, I'd have gotten a perfect score. "Where's Bethany?" I asked.

"In our room. I couldn't send her to her own room because it isn't done yet. So I sent her to our room. She's not to come out until she's thought about what she's done."

I put the bags with party supplies down on the counter and looked at him. "Seriously Dave? Thought about what she did? What in the fuck happened? You look like shit."

"She happened." Dave said. "She's just a little fucking copy of you, but without your good qualities." Man, he was pissed.

I decided to take the comment as a compliment instead of an insult and sat down next to him. "OK." I said. "What happened?"

"Well, we were patrolling like you and I agreed. At first, it was just little stuff. 'Quit walking so slow, you stupid little bitch' and 'Stop pulling at your mask, asshole. I don't care if it itches.' That kind of shit."

"You said those things to her? She's just a little girl!"

"Me? No! " He grumbled. "She said those things to me! Constantly. At least you generally give up after the first ten minutes or so."

I relaxed and smothered a giggle. "OK, then what happened?"

Dave continued. "Well, our arguing finally generated an unfriendly audience. Three thugs came around a corner and pulled knives on us. They said my ass was grass because of what I'd done to D'Amico and then told me that the, quote, 'tiny little cunt rag better get herself lost so that the big boys could play.' As you can imaging, that really upset Bethany. I had to hold her back while she screamed about how she was going to kill the cocksuckers for insulting her. I kept saying 'No' and tried to stand between her and the thugs. She kept saying 'Yes.' and started waving that little pistol that you gave her around. Honestly, the assholes with the knives don't know what to do and it might have been funny if it had stopped there. But they didn't leave and so I finally gave up and told her that she can fire a warning shot at them. Maybe that would make her happy and we could go home. She smiled with glee and, quick as a wink, shot the biggest one in the head!" Dave took a breath. "That's not a damn warning shot!" he shouted at the bedroom door.

A muffled voice from the bedroom shouted back. "It was so a warning shot, asshole!"

Dave turned toward the door. "No, it wasn't! Warning shots are supposed to miss."

Bethany opened the door and stared at him defiantly. "Why the fuck would I miss? That would have just warned them that I couldn't shoot for shit! I gave them a real warning shot and it made them run!" Bethany grinned at him in triumph.

I decided to join the conversation. "I'm a little confused. He was dead; he couldn't run."

Bethany walked down to the couch. "Well, HE wasn't the one I was warning. He deserved to die for calling me a cunt rag. I was warning the other two fuckers about what would happen to them if they kept pissing me off. It worked!"

Oh my god, Dave was right. Bethany did think like me. I grinned. And it was fucking glorious!

Dave saw my grin. "You'd have done the same damn thing!" he accused.

"Probably." I admitted. "Except that I'd have shot all three and then told you to shove your 'warning shot' up your ass."

Bethany burst into giggles and I joined her pretty quickly. Dave just stared at us helplessly. "I can't believe I agreed to live with you two lunatics." With that, he pushed off from the couch walked over to the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

Bethany and I both yelled at the door. "Don't come back out until you've thought about what you've done!"


	6. Chapter 6

Did you notice that the thugs from Dave and Bethany's encounter mentioned D'Amico? Really? Well, fuck it. I didn't.

Dave recovered from his breakdown and Bethany promised not to shoot anyone without express permission. That promise took a lot of peace making on my part, but it was Dave's graduation day and I wasn't going to let anything spoil it. He was meeting Marty and Todd, whom he hadn't seen outside of school even once since he moved in with me and then party with them after. He'd tried to get out of it, claiming he didn't want to celebrate without me. I told him that he'd earned it and that I wouldn't get upset as long as he remembered what would happen to him if he so much as had naughty thoughts about another girl. It involved his testicles, fishing line and razor blades and was pretty creative, if I do say so myself. He got the message immediately and agreed to behave himself. I think that the color drawing that I'd stuck on the fridge helped.

I was going to the ceremony also. But I wasn't crazy enough to be in the audience, even with a good disguise. I'd been around the kids in school long enough that one of them was bound to ID me. And then there'd be screaming and it would fuck up the whole thing. So, I'd watch from the rafters and then hurry off to pick up Bethany. The babysitter said she would charge quadruple overtime if I didn't get there before 10.

Yes, babysitter. There was no way I was leaving Bethany home alone. There was also no way I was bringing her up to the rafters with me. So, that left us with needing a babysitter. The term had pissed Bethany off something fierce when we told her but hey, that's what they're called. Dave and I had wracked our brains about who we could ask. The people that knew about us and wouldn't freak out over me being in town or where the hell Bethany had come from were few. Marty would be at graduation, so he was out of course. Same for Katie, even if I was willing to trust the bitch, which I wasn't. We'd lost track of a lot of the folks from Justice Forever. The 'Finding Tommy' couple would probably have done it, but I think Bethany would have been more than they could handle. Plus, and I know this is harsh, but they'd already lost one kid. How could they guarantee they wouldn't lose another? Finally, Dave came up with the idea of calling Miranda. You know, 'Night Bitch'.

"You want to call who?" I asked. "Your previous fuck bunny? Holy shit, Dave! Wait, you just want to plug up her leak again, don't you?"

"Of course not! It's not like that." He said defensively. "Plus, your description of what would happen to me if I did would be enough to keep any guy faithful, even if he didn't love you as much as I love you." It was clear from my look that I wasn't buying the 'I love you' argument so he continued. "Also, I see the picture you drew to illustrate it every time I get a glass of milk from the fridge. Look, we don't have a lot of options and she's good with kids."

"How do you know…"

He interrupted. "She teaches ballet. Which means dealing with kids, right? " I nodded to indicate that he actually had a point. "Plus, I talked with her some while you were out of town. Trust me. That beating took her hard. Even though Chris 'limp dick' D'Amico couldn't actually rape her, he still did some nasty shit. Whatever spark there was between us was gone when I visited her in the hospital and even if there had still been something, I wouldn't be interested now." He grinned at me impishly. "I mean, I'm the only guy in the world who gets to fuck Hit Girl."

OK. I smiled like a moron at that one. I guess flattery did have its place. "OK, fine. Call her."

And, so, it had been arranged with very little fuss. Miranda apparently needed the money and was happy to help out in a way that didn't expose her to any more danger. Needed it pretty bad actually; I think she realized how desperate we were and she drove a very hard bargain. Bethany was happy because her 'babysitter' used to be a hero and had promised to teach her some ballet as well, for an extra fee. A big extra fee. Ah, fuck it. I guess she's kind of family. And if I just offered her money without some way for her to earn it, she'd be insulted. So, it was win-win. Plus, I'd listened in on Dave's phone conversation with her and made sure he wasn't planning some illicit meeting with her. I mean, I trusted him but that didn't mean I'd gone stupid.

Dave had already left for the ceremony and I'd taken his car to drop off Bethany at Miranda's. We'd decided the Safe House was better kept a secret, even from an old Justice Forever member. I got Bethany settled and then found a place not too far away from the auditorium to park. I snuck behind the building and changed into my costume. I know it wasn't really necessary, but it helped me to remember that I was part of something bigger than a high school graduation. Or, at least I kept telling myself that. However, I'd left the hardware behind because tonight would be peaceful. I climbed to the roof and jimmied open a skylight. About twenty minutes and a lot of wriggling had me safely ensconced high above the stage. Everyone filed in and the ceremony started. There were the typical boring speeches, including the valedictorian breaking down and crying about how much she loved everyone and would miss them. Surprisingly, she really had loved just about everyone; she was widely known as the school slut and I was frankly impressed that she'd studied enough to be valedictorian too. I mean seriously, where did she find the time?

Finally, they started calling names. The names kind of echoed up to me. 'Abrams, James…. Adams, Bradley… Afney, Bella…' I kind of spaced out thinking about how nice it would have been to hear Macready, Mindy shortly after Lizewski, Dave. I mean, I know we weren't in the same year, but it's my daydream, god damnit. I also considered whether I could have had them announce 'Girl, Hit' but decided that would be a bit too much even for me.

The voice droned on. 'Currie, Caroline… Davidson, Dav…. The voice was cut off by a gunshot that startled me so much I almost fell off the beam.

I looked down and the guy who had been reading out the names was on the ground, clutching at his chest and kind of gurgling. A thug with a .357 stood over him. The crowd was diving for cover, which was kind of funny because all they had were folding chairs and each other to hide behind. The fat people got really popular.

"Stay where you are!" The shooter shouted at the audience. The bastard then walked calmly up to the microphone and spoke in a respectful voice. "D'Amico, Chris." The name bounced around me in the rafters while I followed his gaze to see a huge titted girl in a slutty nurse costume pushing a wheelchair up toward the stage. Six thugs flanked it, dressed up to look like those red guys guarding the Emperor in the end of Return of the Jedi. And, there in all his apparent glory, sat Chris. He was wearing some black robe/cowl thing that totally didn't work for someone who was effectively sitting down. This was a new level of mental for him. The insanity apparent in his expression pretty much radiated off of him. They reached the stage and I heard his voice for the first time.

"Why the fuck isn't there a ramp? Isn't everything supposed to be handicap accessible? I mean, what is wrong with you people!" He took a breath. "Oh, fuck it." Chris looked at his 'guards'. "Well? What are you waiting for? Carry me up the fucking stairs!"

Then they manhandled his wheelchair up the stairs in a routine that could have come out of a Mel Brooks movie. When he was finally settled, they handed him the microphone from the podium. I'd sat there in shock ever since I'd seen Chris. I mean, the mother fucker… I mean the Mother Fucker was still alive? I mean, what the fuck? What the mother fuck… My brain wasn't working

I wasted the next couple of minutes on a silent swearing fit over the fact that yet again, I hadn't brought a gun when I needed one. From now on, I was even taking a gun with me into the shower. Before I could recover, they'd gotten Chris positioned in front of the podium and given him the microphone. I finally got over my fit and started crawling along the beams to get closer to the stage. I hadn't brought any weapons but the .357 that the thug was waving around would be a nice addition to my collection. Especially after I used it to blow Chris's head off. I could put it on a plaque.

The gun, not his head. I mean, I wanted him dead, but…. Gross!

"Nice try, Bitches! No one ignores The Motherfucker! This is my graduation day! I am no longer a super villain! I am a MASTER VILLIAN!" Seriously, you could almost hear the capital letters in his voice. Chris looked over the crowd with glee and a total lack of sanity. I glanced down at the crowed again and saw Marty and Todd holding Dave down. I couldn't fault them; If Dave charged in now he'd just end up dead.

I saw at least five people in the crowd hiding and talking frantically into their cell phones. My heart sank. While some of them were probably calling loved ones and saying goodbye, at least one of them would be calling 911. Not what I wanted but, well, we don't always get what we want. I figured I had at most 10 minutes to get Dave and I out of here before the place would be surrounded by a SWAT team. I mean, Dave wasn't in costume but they pretty much knew who he was at this point so he'd end up in jail for sure. I pulled a wireless headset out of my pocket and, after tuning it to police frequencies, put it in my ear. Yep. Sure as shit. The dispatchers were yelling about the SWAT team being 4 minutes out. I had to give them credit; it was a pretty impressive response time. I went back to mouthing swear words like there was no tomorrow. The problem of course was that I wouldn't have time to kill Chris and escape safely. FUCK! Oh well. I had to accept it and get to work. Right before I went down the ladder to the stage, I pulled my mask straighter and checked my wig. If the world was going to see Hit Girl again, I was not going to look like shit.

"None of you are worthy to be in the same room with me!" Chris screamed. "But you have been granted the chance to witness my GLORY! And now, I leave you to tell the world!" With that, he dropped the mic like some fucking rapper. Plus, who the fuck did he think he was, Jesus? The guards got him back down the stairs and moving down the aisle about the same time that I reached the floor.

He glanced over and saw a few of the audience members recording him with their camera phones. His voice shifted back to old wimp Chris. "Hey guys, thanks a lot! That's totally what I was talking about. I really appreciate you recording this. Could you please e-mail those to all four of the news stations? Oh, and, like, could you edit out the part with the stairs? I can trust you to do that, right?" After a long moment, they nodded at him dumbly.

I was quietly working my way around the crowd when I heard a scream. I glanced toward the sound and saw that Brooke had managed to spot me. How many ways was that girl going to fuck up my life? That scream did a perfect job of getting people's attention, but when she followed it by shouting "It's Hit Girl!" the room went nuts.

I guess my reputation for lethality preceded me. But, even if I did kill civilians, I didn't have a gun so I couldn't have killed more than twenty, maybe thirty at the most. But every single person in that room decided to run. They were more afraid of me than they were the thugs with guns. The world is apparently filled with pussies. I think I heard Chris screaming about wanting to kill me himself over the din, but his goons had obviously read the writing on the wall. They just picked him up bodily and booked it out the doors. In my heart, I knew there was no way that I could catch him.

I saw Dave trying to fight his way toward me through the crowd, but I gestured that he should leave with the rest of them and ran back to climb back up into the rafters. God my arms were getting tired. Not even squirrels have to climb up and down this much. I figured I still had time though. A couple of thousand people running screaming out of the building should be enough of a distraction for me to get away. I'd lost my headset in all of the confusion but had to still be ahead of the SWAT teams. I leaped from beam to beam until I got to the roof access and pulled myself through. I ran across the roof and swung onto the fire escape. Last ladder for tonight, I thought. Now to pick up Bethany and figure out a plan to put Chris down for good.

(Section with SWAT guy deleted because it just didn't do what I want)


	7. Chapter 7

The Motherfucker was back. Why in the fuck hadn't he stayed dead! Life was just getting to be pleasant and now we were going to be buried back in the shit. I pulled the more identifiable parts of my costume off as I walked to the car. It was his fault my daddy was dead. And that Dave's dad was dead. And the colonel. I know he's just a kid like Dave and I, but it wasn't time to screw around anymore. He's hurt too many people. I'm going to kill him and bury fucking body myself. Then fill the hole with cement. And maybe dynamite. God damnit he's going to stay dead!

I climbed into the car, plugged my iPod into the stereo, and put it on my 'theme music' mix. When I was this mad, it was generally the only thing that let me calm down without breaking something. It was a weird mix of Death Metal, a few pissed off Avril songs, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, etc. As I pulled out into traffic, I hit the random button and let it choose a song. 'Let it Go' from Frozen started to play…. OK. I liked the song. And I had bought the album for Bethany about a week ago. Not really appropriate for my mood though and it definitely didn't belong in this playlist. Maybe I'd added it by mistake. I had it skip again. The 'My Little Pony' theme song started to play. What the fuck? One more try. Some song about cock sucking princesses being saved by princes started to play. OK, they probably weren't literally cock sucking princesses. At least, I don't think so; I've only seen a handful of Disney movies and they seemed pretty wholesome. Very few of them involved sex in any way. But any girl who waits to get rescued by some prince instead of doing it herself is a cock sucker in my book. Fuck it! The point was that this wasn't my music. I knew I didn't buy any fucking princess songs, which meant that somebody else did. I yanked the wheel and pulled over to the curb, earning me a few horn blares from the people I'd cut off. One guy looked at me rather angry and even looked like he might get out of his car, but when he caught my glare, he put his car back in drive and sped off.

I grabbed my iPod and started scrolling through the song list…. Holy Shit! I didn't recognize any of this music. Where the hell was my death metal? I kept scrolling. The song list was a little kid's delight. At this point, it was pretty obvious that Bethany had changed my playlist and added a shit ton of music. And while I might have usually just 'Let it Go' (not laughing now), I just wasn't in the right mood. I grabbed my phone and logged into the bank to check my debit card records. Yep. There it was. A string of $0.99 and $1.49 charges longer then I could count. It must have been over $200 bucks! And it wasn't the money so much as the betrayal. I couldn't believe it. Everything I gave that kid, and now she goes nuts on my iTunes account? And then I did something I'm really ashamed of. I snapped.

I parked a few blocks away and worked on calming myself down while I walked to Miranda's door. But it just ate at me. Somehow all of this crap and anger couldn't be locked away. I knocked on Miranda's door and when she opened it, I stepped right in and looked around. "Where is the little shit?" I asked.

Miranda stared at me, kind of shocked. "Umm, you mean Bethany I suppose?"

I stared back. "Yep. Where is she?"

Miranda took a couple of steps to stand between me and the living room. "She's in there. She's watching 'Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses'. It's almost over. Do you want some coffee maybe? Or, umm, maybe a valium?"

"Go. Get. Her." I growled.

Then Miranda did something that surprised me. She stood up to me. "No." She said. "Whatever the hell it is, you're way too pissed. Come back in the morning when you've calmed down and we'll talk about it. I won't charge you extra or anything. "

"No fucking way." I said. "She's going to answer for what she did right now." I said. I took a step forward but Miranda didn't budge.

"What did she do? What the hell can a six year old do to get you this pissed off?" She asked.

I thrust my iPod at her. "She fucked with my iPod and changed the playlist."

Miranda looked at me confused. "And?" After a moment of dead silence, she continued. "And what else did she do? Not even you can be this angry over a playlist."

"OK, fine. Fuck the list. But the bitch spent over $200 on iTunes in the last 3 days. Two hundred dollars! And she bought princess shit!" I said, trying not to scream.

Somehow Miranda stayed calm under my glare of doom. "If you ever call that little girl a bitch again, I'll take you out. Got it?"

Somehow, I actually believed her. I mean, I barely noticed when I was swearing and I was more than certain that with Bethany's mouth, she wouldn't think anything about being called a bitch. Hell, she'd called me one yesterday and I'd laughed it off. Where the hell did this Miranda come from? She certainly wasn't the casual hero/fuck buddy that had been part of Justice Forever.

"So, how'd she spend all of that without the password?"

"Well, I gave her the password a couple of days ago. She wanted an extra lollypop hammer in Candy Crush and I said OK."

"Just to make sure we're clear, I'm going to make you repeat that. You gave her the password, correct?" Miranda asked as I stood there confused.

I could feel the moral high ground under me shift a bit. "Umm, yes, but…"

Miranda interrupted. "And did you specifically say she couldn't buy anything else?"

"Well, no, but…."

"And do you think a six year old really understands self control when you, an adult, fly off the handle over a changed playlist?"

The moral high ground had pretty much become quick sand. "Shit." I said. But quiet this time and not angry. I grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and sat down.

Miranda apparently wasn't done. "So whose fault was this?"

Son of a bitch! I'd never really had a mother but Miranda certainly made me feel like I was being dressed down by one. "Mine. It was my fucking fault." I looked up at her. "I'm starting not to like you." I said, but my heart wasn't in it and we both knew it.

She joined me at the table. "Look Mindy. Kids are tough to deal with. I'm not sure you know what you've gotten yourself into here. Especially since if what Dave said was true, you didn't really have much of a childhood yourself."

"So how do you know so much?" I asked. "It's not like you have kids."

"No, I don't have kids of my own. But I deal with a lot of kids at the ballet studio. When their kids don't behave or do things right, I watch their parents yell at them. And blame them. And attack them. All for things that aren't really the kids fault."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a reason they're called kids. They haven't grown up yet. They haven't developed good judgment or learned to understand consequences. That all takes time and a lot of patience to learn. So, a six year old in pre-ballet might want to stand and quietly pay attention, but at some point, she's going to wiggle and run around. Or she's going to have difficulty concentrating because her parents were running late getting her there and didn't feed her a proper breakfast. It happens all the time and just pisses me off. They yell at her but it's their fault!"

"OK, OK. Point taken. So what do I do?" I asked.

"Change your password, obviously. But wait until tomorrow when you've calmed down to explain to Bethany why what she did was wrong and what will happen if she somehow does it again. But let this one slide because if you didn't tell her the rules ahead of time, it isn't fair to punish her for breaking them."

I nodded agreement. This parenting shit was harder then I'd thought. Especially since I was kind of starting in the middle. For example, you don't have to explain to an infant that they're not allowed watch stuff on Pay per view. And it was time to admit that 'parenting' was what I was doing. Bethany was my responsibility. It was my job to help her learn, and grow, and stay safe.

Safe. Which she wasn't. Because The Motherfucker was on the loose again.

FUCK! I'd managed to forget why it was that I was actually upset.

I tried to put a good face on it. "Hey, Miranda, I don't really know how to tell you this. Umm, he's back" I trailed off.

"Who's back? Jason? Chucky? The Ghostbusters?" Miranda obviously hadn't caught on to how serious this was.

"The Motherfucker. Chris D'Amico. He just crashed Dave's graduation." I said.

And then I watched Miranda's face. I'd never actually seen the color literally drain out of someone's face. But that's what happened to her.

"Dave's OK." I told her. But apparently that wasn't the issue. Then she began to tremble. The woman who was willing to stand between me and the target of my anger was falling apart at the mere mention of that fucktard Chris.

"But the shark, and the all the blood and…. How?" She babbled.

"I don't know. He was in a wheelchair, but he had a lot of hired muscle and obviously still has lots of money. He's got to be totally insane now, not that he had a long way to go. He seems to think he's The Emperor from Star Wars or something."

"Muscle?" Miranda took a deep breath. "The same guys who…."

And I remembered. Her attack. Or molestation. Or whatever happened when Chris couldn't get it up to rape her. She was never that specific and nobody ever pushed her to talk about it.

"If they are, they'll die. Painfully. They'll probably die regardless, but I'll make a special point of it, OK? I've got a stake in this too. Chris is the reason my Daddy and Dave's are both dead." I looked into her eyes and she wasn't entirely there. Panic still ruled her. "Breath Miranda. Breath. There's no way they could know about your new place, but if you want to move, I'll take care of it. And if you personally want revenge, I'll help you."

"Then move me. Please. And I'll watch Bethany any time you need me to so that you can concentrate on making sure they stay dead this time. But I don't ever want to see them again. Just…. Make them be gone. Maybe the nightmares will go with them. Promise?"

"I promise." I said. "This time they will all be very, very dead."


	8. Chapter 8

Miranda and I had just finished talking about The Motherfucker being back and finding her a new place to live when Bethany wandered in from the living room. She was obviously sleepy, but still whirled and danced while she crossed the kitchen. Then she crawled up on my lap and snuggled into my shoulder.

"Did you have fun Mindy?" Did you see Dave graduate?

"Did I see Dave gradu…. FUCK!" I shouted. Bethany slid to the floor while I frantically stabbed at the screen of my cell phone until it was dialing Dave. I noticed several texts from him had come in so he was probably safe, but in all of the craziness, I'd forgotten to call. Finally he picked up.

"Are you OK?" He asked, an edge of panic in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Took a bit to get out of there, and then my music was messed up and… Never mind. It's a stupid story. Sorry I didn't call sooner. Are you OK too? And Marty and Todd?"

"We're all fine. But Todd's sporting a pretty good shiner from when I clocked him before they could restrain my arms. I really wanted to climb up on that stage and shove that microphone through Chris's heart. Well, that's assuming the asshole has a heart. He could be fucking bionic by now. We're holed up at Marty's place. Obviously, no one was in the mood to celebrate. Where are you?"

"I'm at Miranda's. Everyone is fine here too and I told her Chris was back. She's a bit freaked…"

Miranda had obviously been listening and shouted at the phone. "I'm a lot more than freaked!"

I switched the phone over to speaker and continued the conversation. "Sorry Miranda. Didn't mean to talk about you like you weren't there. OK – we're all on speaker. Well, anyway Dave, I promised that I'd help her find a new place to live. Someplace Chris will never find. And she'll help watch Bethany while we hunt the cocksucker down."

Dave chimed in. "Thanks Miranda. Are you sure you don't want to pull Night Bitch back out of mothballs and help? It might feel good to know you had a part in getting rid of him."

Miranda gave a rather nervous little laugh. "No way. I'm done. I said I wanted to make a difference when my sister died, and I still do, but it will be strictly as hero support. The only way I'm using my pool cue now is to beat your ass at 9 ball. But seriously, Mindy already promised me but I want you to promise too. Make sure the bastard is dead this time. Please. And any goons he's got on his payroll. Then maybe I can sleep again."

Dave's concerned voice came out of the phone. "Is it the nightmares again?"

"Yeah. And they were finally starting to fade. I'm sure tonight will bring them back though. Please make them stop for good?"

"Alright then. I promise. And I'll come and stay tonight. I remember how that helped. Mindy? Are you OK with that?" Dave said.

"Umm, sure. I'll wait for you to get here and then take Bethany back home." I said it because I could see how scared Miranda was and it was the right thing to say. But I still had to take a deep breath before I said goodbye so that neither one of them would hear the trembling in my voice. I'd just been teasing Dave about not even looking at other girls when I drew those pictures and described the vast punishments I would inflict on his genitals should he ever stray. But I really was scared of him finding someone else. I was afraid that he'd want someone without the phenomenal amount of baggage that I came with. Someone who wasn't so broken. But while I was a little shocked at how close the two of them still seemed to be, there was no hint of romance or desire in their conversation. So, I decided to tell the insecure jealous part of me to go fuck off. We had, as they say, bigger fish to fry.

Then my mind drifted for a moment. Fish... Shark…. Chris falling in the shark tank.

Why hadn't the fucking shark done his job? Fuck you, you suck ass shark! You had one fucking job! Eat Chris! Fuck you, you fucking fucker! I hope they use you as chum for the real sharks in next year's Shark Week!

I was pulled out of my reverie by Bethany tugging at my shirt and trying to climb back up. I let her and wrapped my arms around her tight as sort of a security blanket and we all sat there in silence for a very long time. Eventually, Bethany broke the silence.

"Who's this 'Motherfucker' you guys are talking about?" Bethany asked. Miranda winced as at the swearing but I was pretty much used to it.

"Well, it's pretty much like this. D'Amico senior used to be a big mob boss. He basically ran this town. My Daddy was a cop at the time. Well, he wasn't exactly my daddy yet, because I wasn't born yet. But anyway, Daddy did something to really tick D'Amico off and so D'Amico sent some people to kill my mom and frame Daddy. It pretty much worked, although luckily I was born before Mommy died."

"He killed your mommy?"

"Yes. He had her killed. Didn't do it personally, but he was responsible for it. So, Daddy went to prison for a while and eventually got out. He wanted revenge and so we started training to be super heroes. We stayed quiet though and worked on getting all the info we needed to bring down the mob. Then Kick Ass happened."

"What?" Miranda and Bethany asked the question at about the same time. And I remembered that Miranda really didn't know my true story, in fact, almost nobody does.

"Dave happened. He read one too many comic books and saw one too many injustices in the world. He couldn't take it anymore. So, he bought a fancy wetsuit and a couple of batons and went out to do war."

"Did he do good?" Bethany asked.

"Well, I guess you could say that he earned his name. Kick Ass, or Ass Kick as my Daddy called him because Dave got the complete shit kicked out of him his first time out. They totally fucked him up. He had no real training. Daddy and I did well and stayed out of sight, but that's because we worked and trained hard. Dave just jumped out there and paid the price. But he's tough. He didn't die. He ended up in the hospital and they bolted him back together. Most people would have given up at that point, but not my Dave." I shot a quick look at Miranda to see if she reacted to me saying 'my Dave'. I felt a bit better when she didn't. "Anyway, Dave was way too stubborn to give up. He doesn't give up on anyone or anything. So, he went back out, got seen and made a name for himself. He and I ended up running into each other in a drug dealer's apartment and it goes without saying that I saved him from certain death."

"And you fell in love with him?" Bethany prompted.

"No, not really. He was kind of pathetic, but in that scrappy puppy kind of way. And I was only twelve. Anyway, things started to escalate with D'Amico and he thought Kick Ass was the cause of it all. So, D'Amico let his son Chris go out on the streets as 'Red Mist' to try to catch Kick Ass. Eventually, Daddy and Kick Ass got captured and tortured them. I went in to rescue them but I was too late to save Daddy."

When I paused to remember Daddy's passing, Miranda spoke. "Yeah, I've seen the video on YouTube. I'm sorry about your dad."

"Me too." I said, breathing deeply to stay in control.

"So, D'Amico killed your mommy and daddy? And Red Mist helped?" Bethany prompted.

"Yep. And so I went in to kill D'Amico. I didn't care if I came out alive, as long as he was dead when I was done. Dave wanted to quit at first, but then he realized that some things are worth dying for. He backed me up and together we killed D'Amico and most of the mob in New York. And for a little while, we had peace."

"So then you fell in love with Dave?" Asked Bethany.

"No, not yet. A couple of years later, Chris went nuts and declared that he was 'The Motherfucker'. He built an evil army, and ordinary people banded together to be heroes to stop him. Miranda was one of them." I said. "We won, but not before 'The Motherfucker' had Dave's dad killed as well."

"So, the D'Amico family is responsible for killing both your parents and Dave's dad? And there are still some of them alive on the planet?" Miranda asked.

"Well, I'm not finished yet." I said defensively. "And we thought Chris was dead. But we found out tonight that we were wrong."

"So when did you and Dave fall in love?" Bethany asked.

"A little bit at a time, then all at once, to paraphrase a good book." I smiled in spite of the seriousness of the situation. "What's with you and love stories?" I looked into Bethany's face. After a moment she turned away.

"The story is really sad. I just wanted to find some happy in it, that's all." She buried her face in my shoulder.

"This is a lot for her to understand." Miranda said. "Are you sure she can handle it?"

"It's going to get dangerous. And something bad could happen. People we love should know what's going on instead of wondering what happened for the rest of their lives.

"You love me?" A little voice spoke into my shoulder.

"Yes, honey. I do." I said, and squeezed her tighter. I suppose there should have been some sort of revelation in that statement, but it just felt right and natural.

"So, I guess that means you love me too?" Miranda teased.

"Nah, you were just sitting here." I joked.

"Nice try Mindy." Said Dave, as he stepped out of the shadows in the hallway. All three of us girls screamed. I never scream, so I blame it on them.

"How in the fuck did you get in here? We had the door locked!" I shouted at him, trying to cover how startled I was. This was quite possibly the first time he had ever snuck up on me.

"I came in through the window. 'You can't use the front door, asshole!' You left that line out of the story."

"I did. I didn't want them to think you were that much of an idiot. So you pretty much heard everything I told them?" I blushed.

"Probably. Todd doesn't live that far from here and I left right after our call." He knelt down next to Bethany and me and wrapped his arms around us. "I love you both. And I'm so glad you're safe."

"What about me?" Piped in Miranda.

"You're family. Mindy might kill me later for saying it, but we love you too." Dave hugged Bethany and I a little tighter.

"I don't love…" I tried to say, but Bethany interrupted me.

"Say it!" She ordered, and started squeezing me for all she was worth.

"But…" I tried again, and was again interrupted, this time by Dave.

"Say it!" He said, and I could hear the laughter in his voice. He squeezed too, but I think just hard enough to make Bethany feel like she wasn't alone in the struggle. I pretended to fight back for a minute and then Miranda came over to join the hug.

"OK! OK! OK! I give. Yes, Miranda, we love you. And no, Dave, I'm not going to kill you for saying it. Not unless you start crawling into Miranda's window on a regular basis." I was surprised to find that I really was joking and that all of that fear and jealousy about Dave moving on had indeed fucked off. At least for now.

Bethany chose that moment to yawn so wide I thought her head was going to split in two. Miranda jumped right in.

"OK sweetie." She said, taking Bethany out of my arms. "Let's go grab your stuff so Mindy can take you home to bed." She carried Bethany out of the room.

Dave looked at me seriously. "Are you really OK with me staying? To help with the nightmares?"

"Yes." I told him. "I'm really OK with it. I trust you. And I trust her."

"I'm glad to hear it." Dave said.

"When you stay, what exactly do you do? Not sleep with her, I hope?" I asked.

"I thought you said you didn't have a problem with it?" Dave said defensively.

"I don't. Really I don't. I'm just curious."

Dave sighed. "I sit in the doorway of her bedroom with two guns. One that I've promised to use to kill anyone who comes in to attack her. And one that I've promised to use to shoot her if I can't stop those attackers. She said she'd rather die than go through it again." He lowered his voice. "But that one's filled with blanks. I could never shoot her."

Miranda came in with Bethany's bag and gave it to Dave to take down to the car. He headed out and when he was down the hallway, Miranda came up to me and whispered. "Dave used to visit a lot when you were gone. I couldn't stand to be alone and I don't think he could handle being without you. But I was so scared some nights that I couldn't sleep. And I meant it when I told him I'm never going through that again. So, he came up with the two guns thing. So there was one gun he could use and one that would be safe. And I let him think that. But do you want to know a little secret between us girls?"

I nodded.

"Neither gun has blanks. And just in case he doesn't have it in him to even shoot me with what he thinks are blanks, there's a third gun with very real bullets under my pillow. Never again." I saw the hardness flash in her eyes and then she was back to all sweetness and light while we got Bethany bundled out and into my car.

I kissed Dave goodnight and considered telling him the truth about the guns. Finally I decided not to. It was Miranda's decision. But I really hoped that if that moment ever came, she'd choose to put that last bullet in the attacker and not in herself. Because I've buried enough family.

I drove Bethany back home and put her to bed. Then I sat down with my IPod and after changing my ITunes password, went through all of the stuff Bethany had purchased. It wasn't all crap. In fact, I think it was part of her 'finding the happy' in a life that had sucked pretty much up until now. And it wasn't anywhere near a big deal as it had felt like before. I decided that I wouldn't bring it up until she tried to buy something again and found the password changed. And then we'd calmly talk about it. And then we could set rules and expectations. And try to give her as normal a life as possible. I knew that the next few months were probably going to be hell. It was time to get serious about being a hero. There was no real way to know if we would win or be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice. But for as long as I could give it, Bethany was going to have love, and family. And as much as I could, I would keep Miranda safe. That's how it was going to be until either Chris or I was dead.


	9. Chapter 9

I didn't sleep worth a damn that night. But Dave finally showed up a bit after dawn and crawled into bed next to me. I woke up for a few minutes to crawl into his arms, and then finally feeling complete, I passed out. Neither one of us woke up until Bethany came in about noon to make sure we were still breathing. She poked at me until I opened my eyes, and then she wandered back out into the living room to the company of her cartoons and her pop tart. I was going to have to work on her diet if I was going to toughen her up.

I looked over at Dave and smiled. He was sprawled across half the bed as usual, and had somehow managed to pull the sheets out of bottom of the bed where I'd carefully tucked them in the night before. They were kind of tented up around his waist and the beginning of a naughty idea floated into my mind. I slipped out and made sure that Bethany was all settled and wouldn't disturb us, then swung through the kitchen and back into the bedroom. I carefully locked the door, set out my supplies, and then stripped down to the skin.

A couple of minutes later I had crawled up under the covers around his waist and managed to get his boxers down without him waking up too much. Then, without any more preambles, I took him into my mouth.

It took him a while to wake up. Not his dick, that came to attention right away. But he kind of transitioned from sleep to a gentle thrashing moaning before finally with a bit of a start, he reached down and pulled the sheet out of the way. I pulled off of him and smiled. "Good morning!" I purred. "Or I guess afternoon, really…. But it's always morning somewhere."

He grinned back. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, gesturing at me and what I was doing to him.

I gave him a little lick. "You've been gentle and kind. And wonderful. So, I decided a reward was in order. Plus, I never got you anything for graduation." I sucked him for a moment, then reached over and palmed the can I'd grabbed from the kitchen. "All celebrations need whipped cream." I said and then tipped my head back and squirted whipped cream into my mouth. It was sweet and cold. I swallowed it and licked my lips. He just stared, entranced. I reached up and squirted some into his mouth.

"Oh my god that tastes good." He said. He tried to move toward me, but I'd lain across his legs and pretty much pinned him down.  
"No no no. Stay. Just enjoy." I bent my head back again and filled it with the whipped cream. Then before I swallowed it, I put my mouth back over him. He 'stiffened' when the cold foam wrapped around his dick, then moaned when my tongue began to warm him back up. I did this twice more, really sucking him in earnest. Then I tossed the can to the side and grabbed the other two objects I'd brought from the kitchen. Ice cubes. I rose off of him, slipped them into my mouth, and then really went to work. Heh. Work. Well, it's called a blow job after all, so I guess I can call it work.

He went nuts, both from my swirling the ice cubes around his cock and because he knew he couldn't make too much noise or Bethany would start banging on the door. It didn't take too much longer before I felt him pulsing in my mouth. I smiled, crawled back up him, and grabbed the can of whipped cream to take the taste out of my mouth. I mean, I didn't exactly dislike the taste of cum and I didn't mind blowing him, but the whipped cream still tasted a fuck load better. Then I filled his mouth one more time and kissed him deeply, putting every ounce of love and passion into it that I could. That kiss was sweet in more ways than I could count.

I collapsed onto my back after the kiss. He took the can out of my hand and went to squirt some onto my nipple, but it just kind of hissed and spat. It was empty.

"Did you bring two?" he asked.

I shook my head from side to side, not bothering to get up or look at him. "Sorry. We only had one. Besides, that was for you. I've been kind of a bitch being all paranoid about the whole 'no looking at other women' thing. But I didn't think it was a bad idea to remind you that I'm fucking amazing." I bend my head up so he could see me smiling teasingly at the last part. He took the hint.

"And you're amazing at fucking." He grinned right back.

"Yes. Yes I am." I teased back. "I know we're out of whipped cream, but if you want, you can show me your appreciation in the shower…"

He picked me up and carried me into the bathroom, got the water going, and then proceeded to show me his appreciation by fucking me slowly until I could barely stand and was as wrinkled as a prune. Thank god the hot water held out.

Later that afternoon, once we'd gotten ourselves and Bethany fed, we all sat down to go over the plan for foreseeable future. After a few minutes of talking about 'maybe's and 'what if's', we stopped guessing and got Miranda and Marty on the phone as well. Together we hashed out how we'd make things work. Dave and I would be patrolling most nights. Not so much to keep down crime but to stay visible enough that hopefully Chris wouldn't start attacking innocents. Maybe he'd throw a few goons our way and we could torture Chris's plans for world domination out of them. Hey, that's what they do in the movies….

Miranda had already been busy that morning and had a line on a new place. I'd arrange to get her moved into it secretly with nothing attached to her name so she couldn't be traced. Bethany would stay with her the nights we were patrolling and a bit into the morning so Dave and I could manage a bit of sleep. Then Bethany would come back to spend the rest of the day with us. I was still determined that she was going to get as normal a life as I could give her. Which really wasn't all that normal, but hey, I'd at least make sure I was spending time with her. We also agreed that Miranda would take Bethany and raise her if something permanent happened to Dave and I. That involved about 20 minutes of us trying to discuss it in vague innuendos because Bethany was listening and we didn't want to scare her. Finally, it was settled when Bethany piped up.

"Stop trying to fucking hide it, OK? I'm not a fucking idiot. You might die out there and if you do, Auntie Miranda will take care of me. This 'Motherfucker' kills mommies and daddies, so he might get you. But he also needs to be stopped. So while it might be fun to live with a real life ballerina, please try not to die, OK?"

"We'll do our best." I said, proud of her for facing the issue we'd been pussyfooting around square on.

"Good!" She said, then wandered off to decide which stuffed animals would live at Miranda's and which would stay at our house.

Marty had already decided that he too had no desire to put on a costume again, but that he could help by managing the day to day things that we wouldn't have time for. Shopping, running errands, whatever we came up with. Plus he could be a backup for babysitting if Miranda wasn't available. It wasn't a complete plan but it was a start.

It was late afternoon by then. Dave started getting some dinner started and I started going through all of gear I had stashed to figure out what we would carry on our patrols. For me it was pretty much my standard load out. Body armor, suit, belt, and wig. Two Sig Saur pistols of course, with two extra mags for each. Throwing knives, several pairs of zip cuffs, a larger fighting knife, and brass knuckles completed my rig. Whether or not I carried my katana staff would pretty much depend on where we were patrolling. I love the thing, but it's a bit awkward in close quarters. After a bit of consideration, I added fifty feet of light climbing rope and my harness. I'd still have to climb up all the fucking ladders, but maybe I wouldn't have to climb down.

Dave's gear was a little harder to settle on. He'd carry his batons of course. A new set, actually, that I'd ordered custom and had arrived about a week ago. They had weighted shot in them that would shift when he swung them and give him a lot more stopping power. I'd also ordered him newer body armor that fit him better and could go under his wetsuit. I mean, wearing bulletproof stuff is great, but the more you remind people you're wearing it, the more they just start aiming at your head. And as I'd learned a while back, it really sucks to get shot in the head.

Even by accident…

By your own gun…

Aww, shit. Look, it's getting closer, but it's still not funny. It's too soon. So stop fucking laughing, OK?

Please?

Alright, fine. If I admit it's funny, will you shut the fuck up?

Anyway, I'd gotten him a belt too when I ordered the new stuff. I mean, every good super hero needs a utility belt. It had the usual stuff. Flashlight, zip cuffs, brass knuckles, Batarang, shark repellant…

Yes, I'm kidding about the last two things. I mean, the Batman movie based on the TV show… Seriously, Batman had fucking shark repellant in his utility belt? Just in case? What exactly are the odds?

OK, I was feeling a little silly. Or maybe it was nervous. But Dave had asked for one more addition to his belt. I mean, I'd been harping on it for a while and he'd pretty much ignored me. He said it wasn't his style. It wasn't who he was or what he stood for.

But something had changed yesterday. Maybe it was because Chris was back and Dave knew it wasn't time to fuck around anymore. Maybe it was because he'd done some serious thinking last night guarding Night Bitch. Maybe it had even been Bethany telling us not to fucking die. He absolutely refused to talk about why he had changed his mind. But he finally agreed to one more permanent addition to his kit…

A gun.


	10. Chapter 10

Dave had decided to pack heat. And by that, I meant carry a gun, not whatever your filthy mind had thought of.

I'd spent the first hour or so after he decided singing "Davey's got a gun…" at unexpected moments. He just looked irritated when I did it so it stopped being fun pretty quick. Bethany did it for the rest of the day though and I eventually had to agree that it was annoying as fuck. I apologized and then we got down to business in choosing a gun.

Dave's first inclination was to just grab the closest gun off the wall but I quickly explained that some of them were collector's items or rare enough that I REALLY didn't want to have to destroy them and/or drill out the barrel to destroy the rifling so the cops couldn't ID it in a shooting if I wanted to keep it. So, we sat down at the table and started going over options. Something like my Sig P230 was not going to work for Dave at all. First of all, the grips were wrong. I can't exactly put it into words, but Dave's hands are a lot bigger than mine and they just didn't sit well for him. It was kind of a pity really, because I had around 15 extras new in box. So, we started looking at other options.

Now, when you choose a gun, or really any weapon, you really need to think about what you're going to use it for. The .380 cartridge in my pistols doesn't have a lot of stopping power, but I'm all about the close up headshot so it isn't important. It only holds 7 rounds, but as long as I'm not invading a building or warehouse, that's enough and, if necessary, I can reload them REALLY fast. They're reasonably light. Again, that was perfect for me. It wasn't too cumbersome to have two of them at my waist even when I was in full close combat mode. And, while I was getting stronger as I got older, I'd started using them when I couldn't handle anything with too much kick. Strength had just made me more accurate so the P230's were still perfect. I probably should upgrade now, but they were a part of me and I wasn't ready to go through the work to move to something new.

Dave was a blank canvas so we tried a bunch. We ruled out Glock's pretty quickly. He couldn't stand how the trigger pulled. Plus I'd rather a cop didn't think Dave had stolen his gun. And a LOT of cops seem to use them. I thought about some of the revolvers because they were so simple to operate, but you can't silence them and in my experience, they catch on everything. Plus, reloading sucks unless you've had a lot of practice.

Scratch that, reloading on a revolver just sucks period. Even if you have practiced.

After some more work, we figured out that his wrist could handle a lot of kick. So we started looking at something more powerful than a 9mm without moving to something silly like a .50 AE Desert Eagle. The choices were narrowing.

I'll admit that even I was getting a little tired of trying gun after gun, especially when I considered the fact that I'd have to clean all of them before I could put them away again. Bethany loved it though. But it was getting late so I asked Dave to tell me why wanted a gun, what he wanted it to do for him. He sat there quietly for a long time before he spoke.

"I want something that fits my hand. It needs to be safe enough that I won't accidentally shoot my foot off, especially if I fall off of something and land on it. And while I'm not going to go all 'Dirty Harry' .44 magnum, if I actually have to shoot someone with it, I want them to stay down. Mindy…"He trailed off.

"Yes?"

"I don't exactly want a gun. I don't want to shoot people. I wish it wasn't necessary. So, if… No, not if. When I need to shoot someone, I want make sure whatever I use gets the job done. We both know that things are going to get really serious when we try to erase The Motherfucker from existence. I figure that a couple of sticks isn't going to cut it anymore."

I gave him the respect of making him think that I had considered what he said for a long time, but I immediately knew what would work, at least for now. I understood what he was saying. So, after slowly counting to fifty, I walked over to the closet, opened it, and pulled out a very old cardboard box. The paper making it up was grease stained and it had US Military marking on it. I opened it, removed the gun from the wrapping, and placed it before him. "This is what you want." I said. "A Colt 1911A1 or Colt .45"

Dave stared at me in shock. "I don't know much about guns, but I think I've seen those in World War II movies. Isn't that kind of old school? Shouldn't I be using one of those shiny ones on the walls?"

"You'll start with this. I'll see about getting you a few made up custom with all the bells and whistles but these things have actually been around since World War I without all that many changes. The cartridge is powerful. The gun isn't too wide since they don't try to cram too many bullets in a single stack magazine. It's not tough to carry and even conceal, given its size, and they're surprisingly accurate. There's a regular safety and a grip safety, plus this one is old enough that you actually have to thumb the hammer back the first time you fire. Well, you do unless you decide to go around with the hammer already 'cocked' back. Which I would and you shouldn't. At least not yet… It'll be safe."

"But…" Dave looked over at the wall of shiny black pistols with longing.

"Dave, these things are still used by the Marines. And the Marine's don't fuck around when they choose a gun. They've got some custom ones they've had made in the last few years, but even with the originals, the design is tried and true. MEU(SOC) is what the Marine versions are called. Great gun, shitty name. But, hey, give it a try. Pick it up. Feel it."

He did and I swear it was like he was meeting an old friend. It was made for his hand. The action was a little sticky, but together we took it apart, cleaned up the old grease and gunk used to preserve it, and then he took it over to the range. He took slow deliberate shots with it and while he wasn't the marksman (markswoman?) that I am, the center mass of the target was pretty much shredded. We had a winner, well, at least until I could get some of those custom MEU(SOC) clones that the Marines had made up to fit him.

Well, it had been settled. I had a couple of contacts tracking down the good ones, but Dave was going out tonight with the tried and true one he'd been practicing with. It was just the gun for now, no extra magazines, fancy sights, flashlight attachments or anything else to cause confusion. I was desperately hoping that he could just get used to having it and not have to use it. I mentally resolved that if we ran into any situation that would require a gun, I would put a bullet in them before Dave even thought about drawing.

We packed up, dropped Bethany off at Miranda's, and hit the streets. We walked through a lot of alleys. Most of them had shadowed doorways, blind corners, and other junk which both made it easy for us to sneak and dangerous because someone else could be using those same shadows. Dave was, well, I guess steady is the right word. He wasn't keeping his hand on the gun every second, or even constantly checking it was there. That's what I'd done the first few times Daddy had taken me out like this. Of course, the 400 pushups that Daddy had threatened if I lost my gun probably contributed to my anxiety.

Eventually, I decided that my protectiveness was wrong. If something bad came up, I needed to let Dave go through the process of deciding to shoot, drawing the weapon, and actually pulling the trigger. And I needed to let it happen in a situation where, if he froze, I could still save our butts. Because the day just might come where I couldn't save us and the only thing between Bethany effectively being orphaned again and us surviving would be him pulling that trigger.

Yes, I know we had plans in place so that she'd never really be an 'orphan' again, but I loved her enough that I didn't want to put her through any more pain if I didn't have to. Plus, hey, living doesn't suck.

So, I did something that I probably should be ashamed of. Most people would be. But I wasn't. It was the right decision and I'd do it again if I had to.

I led us down yet another dark alley where I knew a lot of the meth and other truly mind fucking drugs were common. If there was an area where people still took PCP, I'd have chosen there instead because that stuff really fucks with your brain. In short, I guided us toward the most insane, paranoid cock suckers that I could think of.

Because I knew that if we confronted them, there would be a fight.

Because I knew that they wouldn't just have knives or baseball bats or chains.

They would have guns. And they'd be so fucked up that even when they saw us, they'd use them.

We came around yet another blind corner and hit the jackpot. Three total tweakers who almost looked like they were vibrating in place. One of them was even holding a small pistol that he was actually using to scratch his forehead with. Using the barrel to scratch with and with his finger actually on the trigger. It was perfect.

I charged in and split them up. I kept my moves as crazy and flashy as I could because I knew it would make them flip out even more. But I pulled my punches and didn't take them out. I separated the two normals from the one with the gun. Dave had hung back at first, I think a little shocked that I hadn't started with any playful banter or witticisms. I'd gone directly into battle mode. 'Gun Tweaker' started to recover a bit and raised his gun toward me. I thought I'd have to dodge a shot. I believed I'd have to give Dave time to reach the decision to shoot. I didn't.

Before the nut job even got the gun halfway up, I heard a shot. A solid boom that definitely didn't come from the pissant tweaker's gun. The guy was slammed back across the alley and into the wall, where he slowly slid down. Dead.

The other two tried to run but I finally got serious about killing them and finished them off with two quick swings of my staff. Then I cleaned my blades and without any other discussion, Dave and I continued into the night.

I expected Dave to fall apart at some point. To flip out, scream, or otherwise rebel against what he'd done. It didn't happen. Sometimes I don't give him credit for how strong he is.

I thought back to how all of this started. When I went out the first time, I was well trained, well armed, and prepared.

Dave went out in a full body condom with a couple of fucking sticks.

Daddy made sure that I got to progress at my own pace, that I had a backup if I made a mistake.

Dave almost died the first time. And then after he healed, he went back out again.

My first time was easy. And afterwards, I got cocoa. With pink marshmallows. And a bedtime story.

Maybe I'm not the one who really understands what it means to be brave.


	11. Chapter 11

I stared up into the sky and tried to get a bit more comfortable on my towel. And I thought about what had gotten me here.

OK. Let's clear something up from last time first. I do know what it means to be brave. I went on what was basically a suicide mission after Daddy was killed. I knew I'd probably die but as long as I took D'Amico with me, I didn't care. I'm always willing to give whatever I have to or make whatever sacrifice is needed to complete a mission.

By contrast, you could probably argue that Dave going out that second time wasn't so much brave as totally fucking insane. Suicidal even…

Fuck fuckety fuck fuck fuck. I called my mission to kill D'Amico suicidal too, didn't I?

Shit. I guess we were both pretty nuts to keep this all going and to be who we were. Or to label vigilante justice as being a super hero. But hey, what's that Shakespeare quote? "'To thine own self be true?" It's who we were and I'm not going to apologize again.

Hey, stop laughing at the Shakespeare quote. I read!

OK, I didn't read it. But I saw the fucking movie!

Fuck. I twisted again. God damn bikini was trying to crawl up my butt again.

Yes. Bikini. Calm down, I'll explain it eventually.

My mind is a little messed up right now. And I was feeling nervous. It wasn't just because I was wearing a bikini. Every lead on the street that might have helped us to find the Motherfucker was a trap. His thugs had tried to ambush us four times. Only Dave's supreme paranoia had let us catch the last trap before we ended up as shark food. He had pounded into my head that we should assume anyone wearing white was probably going to try to kill us because storm trooper armor is white. All because part of Chris's derangement makes him think he is 'The Emperor'. Turned out that Dave was right when three seemingly off duty hospital orderlies dressed all in white sharing a joint in a back alley tried to kill us. Good thing that their aim was about as bad as a storm trooper…

So the days and nights just kept going by and blended together. We weren't getting any closer to finding The Motherfucker. Every week or so he'd have his goons commit some sort of minor trouble. Always nowhere near us so we'd spend the next few days combing the area and finding squat. The cops were getting pretty anxious because each and every one of the crimes was up on Youtube instantly. He was making them look like complete morons. And the nights were getting short and body armor is really tough to wear when it's 95+ degrees out with what seemed like 1000% humidity. It was a sucky time to look for someone.

To top it all off, Bethany wasn't doing that well with the split living arrangement. After all of the excitement about spending time at Miranda's wore off, she started asking us every night if we really had to go out. She even tried to play sick a few times. One night she made herself sick and while the 'eruption' was spectacular, the cleanup was not. She was sullen and moped around most of the time. I didn't know what to do.

At first I tried to smother her with attention and then I tried to give her space. Neither one helped. She wouldn't work out with me and wouldn't even talk to Dave. All she really wanted to do was cuddle. And then Miranda made the craziest suggestion that I could have ever thought of. I took it so badly that she actually had to dive for cover after seeing the look on my face. Two knives chased her though the air but I wasn't actually trying to hit her so all was fine. It was more the principle of the thing. But eventually I calmed down and tried to rationally explain why it was impossible.

She suggested that Dave and I take Bethany on a vacation.

After my initial protests about our responsibilities were shot down by both Dave and Miranda, I had to dig in. They made me admit that while our mission was to make the city safer, it wasn't our sole responsibility. There were other people out there too. We had Bethany in our life now and she deserved as normal a childhood as possible. She at least deserved one better than she'd had so far. I tried to stall Dave and Miranda by suggesting that once Chris was caught we could celebrate. They logically pointed out that it could be days, weeks, even years until that happened and then even once that threat was over, a new one would probably rear its ugly head. They said that eventually we'd need to take a break and now was as good a time as any. I held out for two more days until they pulled the ultimate in evil tricks. They told Bethany that we were 'thinking about a vacation.'

I lasted maybe 13 seconds after that. Because Bethany did something she hadn't done in weeks. She smiled. And to truly put the last nail in the coffin, she explained that she'd never been on a vacation before.

Not fucking fair guys.

So, I gave in, went online, and booked tickets to Disneyland. I'd never been on a real vacation either; might as well do it right.

Bethany and I went shopping for all the things we needed, with Miranda coming along to tell us exactly what that was. It probably sounds dumb to say that we needed Miranda along to help us shop, but we did. My experience in this field was pretty limited and Bethany's real mom had never had the money to do anything special. I had no clue what a little girl would need for a vacation and even needed Miranda's help figuring out what I would wear. I mean, I'd dressed up a few times, and loved dressing sexy for Dave in the safe house but this was going to be in public. And I didn't do 'public' all that well. Miranda helped with all of that and even had a few brilliant ideas, like not bothering to buy sunscreen and shampoo until we got there so we wouldn't have to fuck around with taking liquids through airport security. The stuff would be more expensive there, but I really didn't give a fuck.

Bathing suit shopping was painful. Bethany wanted to try on everything in the store but eventually settled on a 'Frozen' suit. I tried to pick out something modest and Miranda just laughed at me, put the one piece suit back on the rack, and handed me something that was made of triangles and floss. I handed it right back. She shoved it back at me and after a fierce negotiation, we settled on a normal bikini. I drew the line at a thong. This was a family vacation, damnit!

The only person who got to see that much of my ass was Dave. Well, also a couple of guys in the store who got a good peek when Bethany pulled my dressing room door open while I was still changing. The only thing that saved their testicles from a beating was that they politely looked away after the initial shock and that I immediately collapsed on the floor in a ball trying to cover the important bits up. Miranda busted up laughing and since I didn't have my knives with me, I didn't have to decide if I'd 'accidentally' hit her with one. I settled on the first suit that seemed to fit. This, of course, was a mistake because while it looks great on me, as soon as it gets wet it seems to believe it belongs in the crack of my ass. It would have been easier to have given in and bought the thong.

My swimsuit has been the only real problem with the vacation so far. And I suppose I could go buy another suit in the gift shop if this one drives me too nuts. But Dave, Bethany, and I have spent two wonderful days at Disney so far and are taking a day off at the hotel before we decide if we want a few more days or if we move onto Universal now. The variety sounded cool to Dave and me, but for a little girl, it's hard to compete with princesses. Bethany even got to have a meet and greet with Anna and Elsa on the first day. She was so excited that I thought she was going to explode. We all screamed together on the rides and stuffed ourselves with complete junk food. It'll take me weeks to work off those calories.

Shifting on the towel again, I pulled out my phone and dialed Miranda.

"I hate to admit it, but you were absolutely right. We needed this vacation." I said once Miranda had answered. "Anything going nuts while we're away?"

"Nope. Everything is calm. Actually, I'm kind of bored." Miranda replied.

"Do you want to come join us?" I asked.

"I'd love to, but I can't afford it." She replied, sounding a bit evasive.

"Bullshit." I said. This earned me a dirty look from another mother sitting a few feet away and I silently reminded myself that this was not the place for language. I also made a mental note to again remind Bethany that she should stop telling the ride operators that it was 'fucking great' when they helped her out at the end. The startled looks were amusing though. "Look, unless you're dead or something, I expect to see a charge for first class airfare to Disneyland on that credit card I gave you for emergencies within the next ten minutes. Don't shop around. Just find a flight and get over here."

"But…" She protested.

"Look, the only 'butt' involved here is mine trying to escape this stupid bikini. Call Marty and if he can go, buy him a ticket too. The vacation is nice, but it would be even better with friends." I laughed a bit to cover my embarrassment.

Embarrass. What an accurate word…

"You just want me to babysit so you and Dave can go out on your own!" Miranda accused, joining in my laughter.

"Nah, they have babysitting services here. Hell, they have EVERYTHING here. Well, almost everything. Look, I forgot my iPad. If it helps your conscience, pretend you're doing me a big favor by grabbing it and bringing it along. Just get out here and join us! Look, just agree already so I can get off the phone. Dave and Bethany will be back with lunch in a few minutes and I want it to be a surprise."

"Umm. Look, I'm not supposed to… I really shouldn't. I… OK. Fine. I'll meet you. And I do promise you, you're right. It'll be a surprise." Miranda finally said.

Her tone was kind of strange, but seeing Dave's tousled hair in the distance, I mumbled a 'goodbye' and shoved my phone back into hiding. This was going to be fun.

Bethany wheedled us into doing one more day at Disney and so I texted Miranda and Marty to meet us for dinner at one of the fancy restaurants inside. Their flight would get in about noon so it wouldn't be too difficult for her to get there in time and even give them a couple of hours by herself first.

I was just about dying holding the secret in as we finished the last ride and walked over to the restaurant. I scanned the area looking for our friends, hoping that I could spot them before Dave and Bethany did and make the surprise memorable.

Nothing. No sign of them. OK, maybe they were running late…. I checked my phone. Still no replies to my earlier queries on if they'd gotten in OK. I texted Miranda again. 'Where are you?!' No immediate reply. OK – time to cover.

Dave, Bethany and I went in and found our table. I mumbled to the waiter that the rest of our party wasn't here yet so that Bethany wouldn't know someone was coming. Dave noticed though and he pulled me aside.

"Don't tell me that Anna and Elsa called back to accept your $5000 bribe to join us at dinner. I thought they said it wasn't allowed."

"It's not that. I… Look, it was supposed to be a surprise, but I asked Marty and Miranda to fly down to join us. They were supposed to be waiting outside."

"Maybe they're running late?" There was something strange in his manner but he didn't seem that worried.

"Maybe. But I checked and their plane landed on time six hours ago. And I haven't gotten any message from them since they said they were on the way to the airport."

"I'm sure they're fine." He said calmly. "Probably just got caught up in everything."

We went ahead and had dinner. Dave seemed strangely distracted but not worried. And he wasn't talking. I fought to keep Bethany from noticing. After dessert, Dave insisted that we head over to the hotel but I wanted to go off by myself to try to figure out what was going on. I finally agreed to follow and meet him there before 7. He said that he'd tell the front desk where I should find him. That seemed odd but I was so worried about Miranda and Marty that I agreed. Before he left, he again insistent that I get there absolutely no later than 7. Finally, he left and I checked my phone, even rebooting it in case it was having problems but no messages made it through. I called their homes. No answer. I called the airline and verified that the websites claims that the flight had arrived on time were correct. They wouldn't tell me if the tickets had been used or if Miranda or Marty were on the plane. 'We don't give out that kind of information' they claimed.

Fuck!

Fine. I'd meet Dave as I had agreed. There had to be some sort of explanation for all of this.

Just as I started to leave, I remembered asking Miranda to grab the iPad for me. Hah! I logged into the "Find iPhone' app to try to track it. After a few seconds, it brought up a map with a little pin showing where it was. 'California'. OK, good, they made it. I zoomed in. 'Disneyland Grand Californian Hotel'. Excellent. They were close. Maybe her phone had just died or something. I started walking and hit the zoom button one more time.

The little pin was kind of behind the hotel. There was a little label that I couldn't quite read.

One more zoom and I could read it.

"Wedding Garden"

HOLY FUCK!


	12. Chapter 12

My feet had started to run all on their own. I didn't really know where we were going but they seemed to have a plan so I decided not to argue with them. According to 'Find Iphone ' app, the iPad that I had Miranda bring to California was in the Wedding Garden behind our Disneyland Hotel.

I tried to shake my head clear it and then suddenly had to swerve to avoid running Goofy over. I don't think he'd make that 'Wa Ha Ha Hoey' sound if I knocked him halfway across the park. Instead, he'd probably get up and kick the shit out of me. That would really be embarrassing, having Goofy beat me up. And I'm distracted enough that he could probably pull it off.

OK. I just need to stop and think. I looked down at my feet. They kept running. I guess I'll focus on thinking part.

Obviously there is something strange going on because I can't think of anything other than a secret plan that would have kept Miranda from messaging me once she got off the plane. Plus she was acting really strange when I asked her to bring Marty and fly out here. Like it was messing up a plan or something….

A surprise wedding? For me and Dave? Was that why everyone pushed this whole vacation thing? My mind kept whirling. All kinds of shit was pouring through my brain. "I'm only 16! How in the fuck am I expected to be getting married? He never proposed… I don't have a ring…. I don't have a dress… I mean, I love him, but this is like forever! Holy Fuckety Fuck! Dave's going to marry me!"

With that thought, I tripped and went skidding across the pavement. After I got my breath back, I looked down at my knees which were a bloody mess.

"And now I'm going to get married with skinned knees." With that thought, I ran out of energy, pulled myself into a sitting position, and just started to cry.

Yes, cry. Brides get to cry on their wedding day, damn it! It's tradition or something. Although I'm considering starting a new tradition where the groom gets to roll around on the floor in pain because the bride kicked him REALLY hard in the balls.

Maybe not. I suppose that could ruin the honeymoon. Maybe if I didn't kick him too hard?

It was about that time that Goofy caught to me. After patting me on the back for a minute with those big padded hands, he called over a Disney staffer who came with a first aid kit to patch me up. I just sat there and balled. Finally, when the staffer started to look like she was going to call someone because I was a total nutcase, I pulled myself together enough to get them to leave me alone.

In case you wanted to know, Disneyland is a really weird place to have a breakdown. Happiest place on earth, my ass!

I blew my nose with some tissues they'd left me with and then called Dave.

"Um, hi." I said.

"Min? Thank goodness. Where are you? Are you on your way?" He sounded impatient.

"No. I'm not on my way. I scraped my knees."

"What? " I think he was confused because I was letting something as small as this stop me.

"Yeah! I tripped and skinned my knees. And they hurt." I tried not to tear up again.

"Do you want me to come get you?" He asked with the concern in his voice cutting through the impatience.

"No. No need. I'm staying here." I replied.

"But…" He tried to talk but I overrode him.

"Look, I know what you're doing and I know where you are. Your secret is blown, which is good, because you're never going to be again. Just a sec…" I took the phone away from my ear, trigged the find my iPhone app and sent a command to make the iPad beep. It was still chiming when put the phone back on my ear. "See?"

"I… I'm sorry Mindy. It was supposed to be a surprise. I thought you'd be happy about it."

"This is not a good fucking surprise, got it? Flowers are a nice surprise. Joining me in the shower is a nice surprise. This…" I trailed off for a sec, not knowing how to describe what he'd done. "This isn't fucking fair!" I tried not to wail. I wasn't entirely successful.

"Yeah, I'm starting to understand that. Like I said, I'm sorry hon." I had to hand it to him, he really did sound contrite.

I tried to pull myself together. "You were supposed to ask first, not just assume that I'd be OK with it."

"Would you have said no?" He asked, sounding hurt.

I was really tempted to say that I'd have said no. To hurt him. But I couldn't lie. Not right now. "I'd have said yes. But you should have asked. I deserved it.

"You're right. I, um, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Well, tough shit. I'm not coming." I wasn't that convincing. We could both tell from the sound of my voice that I was full of crap.

His voice got serious. "Look Mindy, I know you're upset. But everything is planned and people are here. I need you to get up and come join us. Please."

I started to panic a little when I realized that I loved him too much to stay away. I wanted him, loved him, needed to be with him. I wanted a future and a life together. But not like this, not rushed. But was I willing to give it all up just because the timing sucked? Shit. I needed to stall and come up with a way to get out of this without ruining any chances for the future. Ha! Lightbulb!

"I'm not coming if Marcus isn't there." I smiled a little. Got you now, asshole!

"Of course Marcus is here. How could we have done this without him? So please, I'll come get you if you want but we need you here." Dave soothed.

The cocksucker had called my bluff. "How did you find him?"

"He found me and thought this would be a good idea. Mindy? I've got your outfit right here. So you can just pop up to the room to change and be ready in time, alright?"

This was Marcus's plan? Shit! And while I didn't think my heart could sink any lower, at the news that I didn't even get to pick out my own wedding dress, I found out that I was wrong. I started to cry again.

"Mindy? Are you crying? It's more than skinned knees, isn't it? There are bones sticking out or something, right? Or is it that you don't want to come?" He sounded a bit panicked.

Fucking hell. I couldn't have that. Couldn't have my Dave thinking that I didn't want him. I wiped my hand across my nose and tried to put some confidence in my voice. "It's OK. Just hurts like a son of a bitch. I'll be fine. Goofy helped patch me up." Not even I could avoid smiling with how ridiculous that sounded.

"Goofy?"

"I'm still in Disneyland, dumbass."

"Oh, right. Good. Shall I come get you?"

"No. I'll be there in like twenty minutes, OK?" With that I pulled myself to my feet and started walking. Marriage was supposed to be about compromises. I guess this was my first.

"Great. Clothes are laid out on the bed and there's a note to tell you where to go."

"I know where to go." I hung up and then looked at the phone. "Asshole!"

I limped up to the room, went inside, and then just stood there staring at the bed. I wasn't some girly girl who'd sat around dreaming about her wedding dress, but in the few vague dreams I'd had, it had definitely been a dress. Not my Hit Girl outfit. Fuck. Well, at least it has a skirt? And as far as I'm concerned, Hit Girl is who I really am so the basic idea of getting married as her wasn't a problem. Still…. Maybe a purple dress? With small throwing knives hung around the waist so they kind of chimed and reflected the light?

No proposal, skinned knees, no dress… My wedding day was really sucking. Well, I'd get even in bed tonight. Dave would find out that when my day sucked, there was no way in hell I was going to.

OK. I was kind of grasping at straws at that point.

I pulled my outfit on, made sure my wig wasn't crooked, and went out the door. I wasn't worried about wearing it in public because Dave and I had already talked about it. There was a huge comic book convention going on nearby and 'Kick Ass' and 'Hit Girl' were pretty popular cosplay outfits. As long as I didn't carry any obvious weapons, I was fine. In the elevator, I got a few compliments from a Spiderman and a Black Widow. Those made me feel a little bit better. At least I looked nice. I walked through the lobby, down the hall, and out the side door that led toward the 'Wedding Garden'. Nobody was there. Strange. Confused, I went back to the lobby. As I entered, there was Dave walking in, wearing his green wetsuit best. Without a word, he held out his hand and I put mine in his.

As he guided me down a different hallway, I looked up at him. "Do I get a bouquet?"

He seemed surprised by the question. "No. Sorry. Did you want one?"

"It would have been nice." I tried to act calm but my pride was finally starting to assert itself. We reached a pair of double doors and he pulled one open.

"How about a ring?" There was an edge to my voice that I don't think he caught.

"Why would I get you a ring?" He asked.

I don't actually remember throwing the punch. I do remember him flying through the doorway and crashing into a table. And then advancing toward him with the intention of breaking at least two bones. Bones heal, right? And maybe he could think this all over while he wandered around in a cast. But Marcus and Dr. Gravity grabbed him and pinned me to the wall. I could have escaped them easily but I was so incensed at Dave that the idea of hurting anyone else didn't make sense. Miranda hurried past us in her Night Bitch outfit and quickly shut the door. Probably to minimize how many people could hear the tirade of swear words pouring out of my mouth. Bethany charged over and began pummeling Dave for about a minute, cursing up as much of a blue streak as I was. Then she came over to check on me. At her touch, I realized I'd better get myself back under control. Dave just kept repeating "I'm sorry! For whatever I did, I'm sorry!" over and over. I looked around the room. It was a standard conference room. A few tables, pitchers of water and glasses. A couple of meat and cheese trays. The remaining members of Justice Forever and a few other friends sat at small round tables talking. That was it. Geez, they'd really gone all out.

Dave climbed back up to his feet. "What the hell?" It's an interesting sign of how much he's used to me knocking him across the room in that the question sounded more focused on the 'why' and not on being pissed off about the brief trip through the air.

"Look, Dave. I tried to be OK with this. I appreciate you trying to surprise me. It's a nice thought. But no dress, no bouquet, no ring… God damn it, it's my fucking wedding day! I wanted at least a few traditional things! Not to mention the fact that you never actually proposed!"

Dave looked stunned. "Wedding?" He tried to say, but the word didn't quite make it out of his mouth.

Oh shit. I looked around the room. Miranda looked concerned. Marty appeared to be laughing so hard that he'd fallen off of his chair. Everyone else was just frozen in place.

"This isn't a wedding." It was more a statement than a question.

"No." Dave managed to say. "No it isn't. Just a surprise gathering of all of our friends. Marcus had been thinking for a while that his reaction in separating himself from you before was a little too extreme and that was time to get together. It made sense to turn it into a full on party."

"Oops." I said, my anger melting away. There was no point in being mad; this was my own stupid fault.

"What made you think it was a wedding?" He asked.

"The 'find my iPhone app' said the iPad was in the Wedding Garden. Apparently it wasn't." I actually giggled a bit.

"Umm, Mindy?" interjected Marcus. "You do know that thing is only accurate to, at best, 10 meters or so? Around 30 feet?" He glanced at the back wall of the room. "And I think the garden is on the other side of that wall. Incidentally, why was it important if I was here?"

I pushed Dr. Gravity off and hugged Marcus. I whispered in his ear. "I wanted you to walk me down the aisle. I mean, not today I guess, but when it does happen? I want that. So no more disappearing, OK?"

"Sounds good. Hey Min? I always wanted to keep you safe. Sorry if I haven't done that in the wisest way." He whispered back. I just smiled to show I understood.

I looked at everyone else. And managed to smile. And then laugh at myself. One of these days I guess I'll learn not to be such a pawn to my emotions. But what the hell, if you can't be an idiot around friends, who can you be one around? "Oh my god everybody, I can't believe I did that. Let's just pretend it didn't happen and that I have at least a little bit of dignity, OK? I'm absolutely thrilled to see all of you. I guess it's time for a party." I looked around and thankfully saw the tension easing out of the room. "Marcus? This is Bethany. She's, umm…" I wasn't quite sure what term to use. Friend? Daughter?

"Dave has explained. And she and I are becoming good friends." He looked down at her. "Right Bethany?"

At Bethany's shy grin, any remaining concerns that I had about seeing everyone faded. Family was important. And like I'd already figured out, family was important. Marcus might have driven me nuts, but I'd instinctively liked him and it looked like Bethany was doing the same. I wasn't going to forget to appreciate family. Speaking of which…

I then looked over at Dave. "I'm really sorry about hitting you. Are you OK?"

"Wedding? You thought this was a wedding?" was his only reply. I tried to hide how much that comment hurt but Marcus noticed. He might not have understood me being Hit Girl but he still knew me pretty well.

Marcus looked back and forth between us. "Look you two. We'll get the party started. You need to go talk. And you need to do it before this becomes a problem and you end up getting banned from Disneyland after some phenomenal fight."

I joked to avoid showing how vulnerable Dave's question had made me feel. "And I was looking forward to tossing him off the top of the Tower of Terror!" I walked over, grabbed Dave's hand, and pulled him out of the room. We went upstairs. I pushed him down on the bed and lay down on his chest. "Let's talk like this. So we don't accidentally hurt each other with something we say, OK? I've spent the last hour being a total fucking idiot and it's time for that to stop. As long as we've got each other, everything is fine, OK? You don't have to panic."

Some of the tension eased out of Dave's shoulders. "Did you really think that I would do that?" He asked.

I tried not to take offense. "Well, I kind of hoped you would someday. Not like that, but getting married… I mean, we've talked about it some. Have you changed your mind?"

"No, I haven't changed my mind." He replied. It was amazing how that phrase made me feel better. "I meant, did you really think that I'd just skip all of the preliminaries and go right to the wedding?"

"I didn't think you would, but I kind thought you had. You know, in the spirit of the surprise. If you take my meaning?" I said. I felt him nod his understanding.

"Good. I mean, not good that you misunderstood, but good that you didn't believe I'd do that to you. Because I wouldn't. Mindy? Do you remember when we first got together? When I talked about not going too fast with sex and a relationship and why?"

"Yes."

"Mindy, I'm not going anywhere. But I said then and I'll say it again. You deserve the whole experience. We deserve it. And I'm not going cut corners and jump ahead, OK? I will happily marry you, if you want me to. But not today, OK?"

"I do want to marry you. Does that mean you're proposing? That we're engaged?" I asked.

"No. Definitely not." He said. I tensed a bit at the 'definitely' part but thankfully he kept talking. "You will at some point get a proposal. One that will hopefully be a better orchestrated surprise than today was." We both managed to laugh. "Or maybe I'll skip the surprise and just schedule it with you. Not as romantic but definitely easier on my body. I love you Mindy. And you will get the whole thing. Ring, bended knee, the works. Because you deserve it and because I want to give it to you. I know a guy that got engaged after a misunderstanding like this. Not quite so severe, but where he wanted to marry the girl but hadn't planned on proposing quite yet. He always regretted it."

"Dave?"

"Yes?"

"Why in the fuck do you put up with me?" I was kind of kidding and kind of serious in my tone.

"Because you are the most amazing person I've ever known."

I squeezed him tight.

"And you have a great ass!"

I punched him in the shoulder. But gently.

I laughed and replied. "OK, now that we have everything settled, do we move on to the kissing and making up part?"

"Mindy, technically we didn't have a fight."

I smirked. "I know. But are you seriously going to forgo make up sex due to a technicality?"

"Not on your life!" He replied.


	13. Chapter 13

Post make up sex, we headed back down to the conference room Marcus had reserved so all of us would have a space to visit and talk without having to be careful about what we said. The sex had been loving, but not that spectacular since my knees still really hurt. Most of the really fun sexual positions use your knees in some way. Oh well. It was like old home week. Not that I'm entirely sure what the fuck that phrase means, but I think it was referring to spending time with old friends. Who cares what we called it, I guess. We had a lot of fun. I asked Miranda about actually dressing up as Night Bitch and she said that since they were in California, it was OK. It didn't bring the nightmares back. And if it did, well, she said she wouldn't need Dave to stay with her. Marty was sharing her room and while she was kind of sparse on details, it was very clear that they were getting close. With that in mind, I decided not to kick Marty in the balls for laughing so hard at me when I thought there was a wedding. He might be needing them later and who was I to deny Miranda some happiness?

Especially some happiness that separated her from Dave. I mean, I wasn't really jealous over the whole 'standing guard thing', but, fuck it all, he was mine! And as you've probably figured out, I absolutely suck at sharing.

Bethany was in heaven. She'd had multiple days of Disneyland to get her going and now she was at a super hero party. She even had her own costume. It was pink and light blue, and way too cutesy to use in the field, but she liked it. It was a little plain though, because we still hadn't given her a super hero name. She kept coming up with ideas, but she wasn't any more original than Todd had been when he came up with 'Ass Kicker', Dave and I had agreed not to say yes to any of them yet.

I suppose we really didn't need to be in costume. We all knew who each other was. I had been the only one with even a hint of a secret identity left but the news reports after the attack at the cemetery had very clearly spelled out my name.

Hey! I just realized that since I'm under 18, they weren't supposed to give out my name! Some news reporter is going to have to get a visit from me to discuss journalistic ethics. Well that or discuss literally removing his head from his ass….

We visited in little groups at first. I got to spend quality time with Night Bitch, Finding Tommy, and Dr. Gravity. I kind of avoided Marcus. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to him, it was that I had more to say than I could manage over finger foods. I'd find him from time to time and give him a little hug though. I think he understood. Finally, we gathered all together and drank a toast to the Colonel. And then one to everyone who had died in the big battle at Chris's hideout. By this point Bethany was asleep on Marcus's shoulder. Everyone agreed it was time to go. We agreed to keep in better contact going forward but I think that was as much 'togetherness' as we could handle at one time. We decided that Miranda would take Bethany tomorrow, Dave and Marty would spend some time together since they'd never gotten to celebrate Graduation, and that Marcus and I would finally get to sit down and talk.

The next day after breakfast I met Marcus at a local museum. Theme parks weren't really his thing but he did his best thinking and talking while moving, so it seemed the best way to go. Plus, no one really pay attention to anyone else at a museum so we could talk safely.

"So, Min... I know I've been overreacting to a lot of things for the last year. Do you understand why? That I didn't want to hurt you but just wanted to keep you safe?" Marcus started when things finally got too quiet.

"I do. It's OK Marcus. Having Bethany around has given me some perspective on what it means to take care of someone." I explained, and went on to give him the entire story of how she'd joined Dave and I. Well, I left out how she shot someone in the head. Marcus is great and all, but he isn't really emotionally ready to accept every single part of what we do. It's kind of like being involved with someone who cleans septic tanks. You hope they had a good day, but if they didn't, you REALLY don't want the details.

"So … What are your plans? For Bethany I mean?" He sounded like he was going to going to go into lecture mode so I figured being honest was the best thing to stop that.

"Honestly? I don't exactly know. I'm not going to give her up. And I'm not going to put her in the foster system or some shit like that. So, we'll figure it out day by day."

"Mindy, she deserves better than 'day by day'. She deserves a life. A mother."

"I know. And even though my life isn't exactly suited to motherhood, I'm going to make it work."

"You think you're going to be a mom? Mindy, you're sixteen. And that's a big word to trot out. And that's a little girl's life that we're talking about. Are you sure you're prepared for what that's going to take?"

"Nope." I said. "I'm not sure and, at times, I'm completely terrified."

"Well, at least you've got that part right." He replied. "You should be scared. The best parents are always at least a little bit scared. It makes sure that you don't stop paying attention. Are you going to raise her to be…" He looked me up and down.

"Am I going to raise her to be me? Is there something wrong who that Marcus? Are you ashamed of me?"

"You know I'm not ashamed. I'm proud of who you are, how strong you are. I wish you'd chosen a different 'profession', but well, you do make a difference in the world. But your life isn't for everyone, hon. It isn't for most of the world."

"I hope she doesn't have to live my life, lose any more people, or that sort of thing. But I will teach her to be strong. I'll make sure she knows how to defend herself."

Marcus interrupted. "But it's not safe…"

"Marcus? Her life has never been safer then it is now. Maybe it still isn't as safe as some kid living in a suburb, but given where she was before she met me, it's a thousand times better."

"OK, I'll grant that being with you is better than following her mom from crackhead to crackhead, but she could have a normal life." Marcus seemed obsessed with that idea of normal.

"What the fuck is normal, Marcus? You've said that Daddy stole my childhood. Well, the world stole hers before I even met her. So she and I have that in common. And it's too late now for 'normal'. She's been abused, mentally, physically… She's seen things that regular people should never have to see. If you put her with 'normal' parents she'd never survive. I'm going to show her that she can be a strong girl and a strong woman, even in a world that is shit."

Marcus tried again. "Yes, but maybe I could…"

"You? Raise her? There's no fucking way you could raise her." I shot back.

"I raised you!" Marcus replied.

"No, you didn't!" My voice got a little loud on that and a few people glanced toward us. So we stayed quiet for a few minutes until we found a more isolated place to talk. I know I'd been a little cruel with that last comment so I tried to calm down.

"You helped, Marcus. You did. And I love you for it so much that when that real wedding happens some day, I really do want you to walk me down the aisle. But Daddy was really the person who made me who I am. I love you, and I love everything you've done for me. But if I left her with you, Bethany would only run away."

"How do you know she won't run away from you?" Marcus asked.

"Oh, she will." I said. "She'll run away. She's been though too much shit and watched too many people make the wrong decisions. One day she'll panic and out the window she'll go. I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened already."

"You seem kind of calm about it."

"I'm not sure calm is the right word, but, Marcus? I understand her. More than you could. And so I'll be able to do something that you couldn't."

"And that is?" He replied.

"I'll be able to find her."

Marcus didn't seem to have a reply to that, so we let the subject drop. We walked though a few more galleries and then he found a new subject.

Dave.


	14. Chapter 14

Marcus and I retired to the snack bar at the museum so he could continue his examination of my life. I suppose that I could have been bothered by his criticisms but, really, I hadn't had anything resembling parental involvement in my life for a long time. I'd kind of missed it. After making sure that I was OK and not just caught up in lust, he then said something I didn't expect.

Marcus cleared his throat. "Mindy, I'm about to say something that no sane step father would ever tell a sixteen year old girl." I braced myself and then he continued. "I'm absolutely OK with you marrying that boy."

"What?" I managed. Yeah, really sly and sophisticated of me, wasn't it?

"If you want to marry him then go for it." he said.

This time, I didn't even manage anything as creative as 'What'. I just stared at him.

"Honey? You love him. I can see that. And he loves you. I mean, nobody who didn't love you would have put up with you during that head wound." I grimaced at that. He continued. "And he steadies you in a way that I think you need. Normally I'd still tell someone your age to take their time, let things be until you're twenty or so. But your job is very dangerous. Who knows what could happen tomorrow? So grab every bit of happiness that you can while you can. You definitely deserve it."

I gulped a bit and tried to find my voice. "So, you think it's real?"

Marcus nodded. "It's as real as anything in this crazy world we live in now. The real world isn't supposed to have superheroes. And it definitely isn't supposed to need them. But it does and you're one of the best ones out there. I worry about Bethany getting caught up in that craziness but you were right about that too. You are giving her a life much better than what she had and you have every protection in place to make sure that she's taken care of if the worst ever happens. That's as much or more than any other parent does in this world."

OK – did you believe any of that shit? Really? If so, could you call Marcus and tell him or something?

Because unfortunately for me, that isn't what happened. Instead, Marcus said the opposite. He accused me of being obsessed with my first crush, was horrified when I told him that Dave and I had been intimate. Well, he used the word 'intimate'; I said 'fucked' and that almost started a completely different argument. He said there was no way I should consider getting married until I was at least thirty. Pretty much a typical father denying that his girl was growing up. I've danced around in my head whether referring to Marcus that way was insulting to Daddy or not, but, hey, Marcus took care of me for a long time. If I was going to think of myself as a second mom to Bethany, then it must be OK to think of Marcus as a second dad.

Anyway, his concern was kind of cute. In fact, the argument was just starting to get fun when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out and I didn't recognize the number so I just put it away. But before I could get back into the discussion, the thing rang again. Grumbling because it had interrupted a great comeback that I'd thought of, I went ahead and answered it.

"Who are you and what the fuck do you want?" I asked.

After a brief pause, a familiar high pitched voice filled my ear. "I am the Emperor! And I want you to suffer, you little bitch!" Holy Shit! It was Chris. How in the fuck did he have my number?!

I pulled together every bit of bravado that I had. "You're a fucking idiot and I don't think you have the capability to hurt anyone, you dickless mega-cunt!" I shot back. Marcus looked shocked at the language I was using. I covered the phone and whispered"It's the Motherfucker! Chris D'Amico!" Marcus's reaction was to guide me over to a private corner so no one would hear the call and then look around like he was annoyed this wasn't a police station where he could tell someone to trace the call.

"You'd be surprised at what I can do, you stupid little 'cu…" He stopped at that and, I think, pulled the phone away from his mouth, because I could only faintly hear him when he said to someone else "She already used cunt! I need another insult word! After a bit more mumbling, his voice returned clearly to the phone. "You stupid little whore!"

Seriously? He needed help to insult me?

"Whore? Is that the best you can do?" I replied.

"Yes! I mean No! I… Never mind." I could hear him take a deep breath before he continued. "So, umm, how's your vacation?"

I blinked. Where the fuck had that come from? "Umm… Fine?"

He tried for an evil laugh. Failed miserably. "No. No it isn't fine. And you'll find out why very soon. Toodles!" And with that bit of stupidity, he hung up.

I repeated everything to Marcus. "Toodles? What the hell is wrong with that guy?"

"I don't know. Maybe the shark did bite him in the head." I said.

"Pity he didn't bite a bite a bit harder." Marcus laughed.

See! I'm not the only one who thinks the shark did a shitty job that day! Stupid fucking shark…

The problem was that it was kind of difficult to take Chris seriously when he acted like this. But his dad had managed to get mine killed and he'd gotten Dave's killed. And it was very concerning both that he had my number and that he knew where I was. It was time to stop laughing and deal with him.

Marcus and I headed out to the rental car. We were meeting up with Dave, Marty, Miranda, and Bethany at 3:30 PM and it was getting close to that. As we drove, we discussed how Chris might have found out my number and where I was. If someone had squealed, well, we were on our way to meet up with everyone who knew everything Chris knew. There were a few other people out there who had my number, like the guy who did fake ID's for me, but they didn't know who I really was and they didn't know I'd left New York. And the other former members of Justice Forever knew where I was but I'd never given them my number. So that only left my best friends who could have ratted me out. I began to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn't because of the jalapeño nachos I'd shared with Marcus in the café.

Although now that I mention them, I had to admit they were causing some wicked heartburn.

Bethany and Miranda had beaten us to the park we were meeting at and Bethany was going over the playground toys like they were a marine obstacle course. Several of the other kids were just staring at her as she rolled, flipped, and spun. I had to admire how much she'd picked up in just a little bit of training time. I was about to tell Miranda about the call but then decided that I really didn't want to go over the thing twice. Plus, she might do mental if she found out that Chris might know where she was too. It would probably good to have Dave and Marty around when she panicked.

You know, given how much that fucker had done to her, I don't know if 'panicked' would have been a fair word to use.

Anyway, Marcus, Miranda and I just sat on a bench and watched Bethany play while we waited for the guys to show.

And waited.

And waited

And waited.

(I'm guessing you get the point…)

I'd tried calling and texting them to no avail. And Dave had insisted on a fucking Android phone so I couldn't track him the way I could with the Apple stuff. Finally, I broke down and told Miranda about the call. I was rather impressed by her reaction. She didn't get scared. She got pissed.

Really fucking pissed. Not screaming, yelling or kicking stuff. It was the 'I'm surprised laser beams aren't shooting out of her eyes' kind of pissed. It was enough that Marcus (and Bethany when she finally got tired of playing) just stayed away from her. As it got later and it became obvious that something wasn't right, we told Bethany that the guys were running late. I'm pretty sure she didn't believe us.

I was kind of at a loss. I'd grilled Miranda and Marcus to make sure this wasn't part of some additional surprise. Never in my life would I have been so happy to be the target of a practical joke. I tried to come up with a plan, to come up with something to do. But there really wasn't anything to target or strike out at. Dave and Marty hadn't been that specific on where they were going to spend the day so I didn't have any place to even start looking. And I didn't have any informants here in California that would help.

Then Chris's words in the phone came back to me. He said things weren't 'fine.' And that I'd find out why soon.

I tried to wait, praying that Dave and Marty would just come running up with some wacky story on how everything had just gone wrong. Phones fell in the toilet, wallets got stolen, they got lost… It was hope, but it was bullshit hope. Every minute made it more and more clear that the worst thing I could think of had happened. At 5 I finally gave up and I pulled my phone back out. A quick search in my call history and I'd placed a callback to Chris.

"Explain." I just said when the phone picked up. I was still wanting to be cryptic in case he wasn't responsible for Marty and Dave being missing. I didn't want to give him any more information. For the first few minutes I just heard laughter. I finally put it on speaker both so that I wouldn't have to repeat it and so that I wouldn't have to hold that sound so close to my ear.

Chris seemed to recover himself. "Missing somebody?" I began to swear and threaten Chris incoherently but he just let me go on and on until I ran out of shit to say. After a long spell of silence, he spoke again. "If you want him back, you'll surrender yourself to the police. You'll confess that you killed my Dad. Your step-dad cop will be the one who takes you in."

"Why?" I asked, although it was kind of bullshit question.

"Because I've been thinking about how to punish you for a long time, and nothing would make me happier than to send you to prison. Killing you would be too fucking easy. You have 24 hours." He hung up.

I looked at the others. "He's got Marty and Dave. And I've got no idea where. Now what do I do?"

Marcus cleared his throat. "Mindy? He said to turn yourself in if you wanted 'him' back. 'Him'. Singular. That means he's only got one of them."

Now I really felt like I was going to throw up. I thought I was confused before. Fuck! Which one did he have? And what had happened to the other? I mean, I'd do anything to save Dave, but if he only had Marty? What kind of sacrifice was I willing to make then?

What if Dave was dead?

Bethany looked at me with tears in her eyes. "Is Dave OK?" I didn't know how to respond so I just looked away.

Suddenly, my phone rang again. I looked at the caller ID.

It was from Todd. How did he have this number? As the phone rang again my eyes narrowed. Maybe I'd just found my rat.


	15. Chapter 15

Todd's number was ringing on my phone.

Fucking Todd. I flashed back to a conversation I'd had with Marty last night. I mean, seriously Todd thought he was going to 'save himself for me'? As if I'd ever touch that little rodent or as if he even had a shot with anyone else. He wasn't saving shit.

Caller ID taunted me as it flashed his name again.

Dave and Marty were missing. Chris/Motherfucker/Emperor had claimed that he had one of them and that if I didn't turn myself into the cops… Well, I didn't even want to think about that he'd do. And god damnit, which one did he have? And what the fuck had happened to the other? How could I plan something with that big of an unknown?

Another ring. Shit. I might be running out of time. But I just couldn't make myself press the answer button. Then I thought 'Hey, dumbshit! You've been making a lot of stupid assumptions lately. What if it isn't Todd on the end of the phone? What if it's Marty? Or Dave?'

I tapped the green button on the screen and put the phone to my ear. This call I wasn't willing to put on speaker.

"Hello?" I said, not wanting to start whatever conversation might happen off on the wrong foot.

I heard Todd's voice and felt my heart sink into my shoes. My heartburn was turning into footburn. "Hi. My name is Todd. Umm, this might sound weird, but is Marty there?" He asked.

"Actually, no. I'm looking for him though." I said, trying not to scream at him.

"Yeah, well, Marty said to call this number if there was ever an emergency and I couldn't get a hold of him. Hey, I recognize your voice – this is Mindy, right?"

"Yes, it's me. Look, Todd, what's going on? What's the emergency?" I said.

"Long time no talk! So, anyway, this girl came by a couple days ago looking for Marty. She said he'd won the lottery! Which is so wicked cool. I told them he was on vacation and that they'd have to talk to him when he got back. But then she said that if he didn't claim the prize soon, he'd lose it. So I gave them his number and told them where he was staying. And then I got kind of busy and forgot about it. But I remembered a little while ago and tried to call Marty to tell him to look for the lottery people so that he didn't miss out on all that sweet money. He wasn't answering his phone and I know that they won't wait much longer before they give the money to someone else. So then I thought 'Hey – call the emergency number!' So I called so that you can tell Marty about the prize." Todd just blathered on and on like that. So excited about the bullshit prize and hoping that he'd get to share in the riches.

Holy fucking fuck. He fell for the god damn lottery con. I'm surprised there wasn't a Nirobi prince involved…..

"What did the lady look like? Did she give a name or number?" I asked. Jesus, this guy was really too dumb to live.

"Well, she was blond and hot and had big…" He stopped and I swear I could hear him blush through the phone. I remembered the big titted nurses Dave had described helping Chris when he invaded the graduation ceremony.

"Boobs, right? She had big boobs?" I asked. Don't guys ever notice anything else?

"Umm, yeah." he replied. "I didn't want to say it because yours are kind of small and I thought it might make you feel bad."

He didn't really say that, did he? I really needed one of those apps where you can kill somebody through the phone.

"You are NOT allowed to talk about my boobs, got it?!" I tried to take a calming breath and failed. "Look, did you get a name? A phone number maybe?"

He spouted off the info and I jotted it down. "She said she'd be going to California to meet up with him. Said her boss's office is the top floor off Imperial Tower and Marty should go there if she missed him. So, you'll let him know about the prize and where to go? I don't want him to miss out, because this one time, he promised that if he ever got rich, he'd buy me every single issue of the Kick-Ass comic."

I hesitated. Did I tell Todd that Marty was missing and not to tell anyone anything else because it might get one or both of them killed? Or did I risk leaving the cocksucker in the dark and him then blabbing that he'd found me the next time the inflated bimbo contacted him?

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Todd? I need you to listen to me. And I need you to fucking pay very close attention. Marty is missing. He might even be dead."

"What?"

"Look. The Motherfucker is NOT dead. Marty and Dave are both missing and if I don't do what he says, one or both of them will end up dead. I'm not going to let that happen, got it? And I know that you might have been all butt hurt last time about not being let into Justice Forever and not realized that you basically got Dave's dad killed by blabbing shit to Chris. But if you give them one more morsel of information, I will personally rip out your intestines, tie one end to the top of the Empire State Building, and then kick you off to find out if they're strong enough to make you bounce. Got it?!"

"Umm, yeah" Todd replied weakly.

"I don't care if they fucking torture you. You don't know where Dave or Marty or anybody is! Just act as dumb as you are!"

"O…OK. If you find out if they're de… I mean if you find out anything, will you call me?"

God damn it. The little shit cares. I tried so sound confidant. "I'll do my best to save them. And if the worst happens, I'll make sure somebody lets you know." I paused a moment, then added. "And my boobs are fucking perfect, not that you'll ever see them!" I hung up the phone.

Miranda looked at me. "What's with the boob stuff?"

I replied. "It was Todd on the phone."

She laughed half heartedly. "Well, at least that part of the world hasn't changed. What important things did he have to say?"

I looked up at Miranda and Marcus. "Some bimbo conned him out of Marty's location. I've got a lead from him that I'm going to check out. Top of an office tower. Imperial Tower. Chris is probably there; he's way too obsessed with the Star Wars shit to not be at the top of the Imperial Tower. Holy fuck I hate that guy." Miranda swore and Marcus just looked angry.

"I could call the police. Get a swat team up there maybe?" Marcus suggested.

I looked him in the eyes. "We both know that'll just get whoever the Motherfucker has killed. He's too unstable to risk anything conventional."

"Fine, but if things go nuts, I'm still calling SWAT." He pushed.

"If things go that bad, I might call them for you." I handed Marcus a piece of paper with a tracking number on it. "That number matches a couple packages waiting at the UPS store on 2nd Avenue. There's a set of my gear and Dave's in them. Take them to some random hotel, rent a room, and then call me to let me know where you are."

Miranda interrupted. "Why did you send equipment out here? This is supposed to be a vacation!"

"After that attack by the 'hospital orderly storm trooper what the fucks', I decided that a bit of paranoia was in order." She grudgingly nodded in agreement. I pulled a stack of hundreds out of my purse and handed them to her along with a disposable cell phone. "Take Bethany and find a place to hide. Toss your own phone in a dumpster so there isn't anything that could be traced. Who knows what else Chris's money can buy. All I can do is hope that disappearing will be enough to keep you both safe. I'll call when it's over. If you don't hear from me in a couple of days, drive back to New York. It will keep you off the grid. You'll find about half a million dollars hidden behind the wall of your closet. Use it to get out of there and to build a new life for the both of you." I stopped, then something else occurred to me. "Oh, don't try to take the money through airport security though. The drug sniffing dogs would go insane if they got close to it."

Marcus looked at me sternly.

"Hey, the previous owners didn't need it anymore, and have you seen what happens when you hit a bag of cocaine with a hollow point?" I said defensively.

Bethany spoke up. "Did you mail my stuff here too? I wanna help!"

"I… No… I can't risk… "I looked at Marcus, my eyes begging for assistance.

Marcus cleared his throat. "Bethany honey? You're not ready to help on something like this. This is what Mindy does. I don't like it, but it isn't my decision make. She's trained and sacrificed for years to be what she is. And, she's old enough to make that decision. Maybe one day, when you've learned enough, you can choose what kind if life you want." I know how much it cost him to even admit that.

Bethany spoke up. "Mommy?" I looked at her in shock. "I mean, can I call you mommy? I might not get another chance so, can I, please at least once?" I just nodded at her, unable to talk past the lump in my throat. "I love you. Please don't die. Please don't let Dave die either. I love him too. I want him to be my daddy some day. Well, I do if he stops being such a pussy."

I coughed and found my voice. "I'll do my best honey. And Auntie Miranda will keep you safe."

Marcus spoke up. "Bethany? Mindy is just about the best in the world at what she does. If it can be done, she'll do it."

We settled our plans and prepared to head out. I would recon the tower while Marcus grabbed the gear. Miranda would get Bethany the hell out of there. As we turned toward the cars, we got out next surprise of the day. It was Dr. Gravity half carrying, half dragging someone who looked like they'd been through a war. We rushed over and helped him lower the injured man to the ground. It was Marty. Miranda checked. He was still alive but had been beaten to a pulp.

I didn't think that I could feel any sicker but I actually had to turn to the side to throw up. Not because of how Marty looked, although it was pretty bad. It was because of what Marty being here meant.

Chris had Dave.


	16. Chapter 16

Chris had Dave. In my mind, that's somehow written in 1000 point font. I mean I knew in my heart that was what had happened. No way would he'd have made the demands that he made if he'd only had Marty. And let's be honest, Dave was probably already dead. But I was going to assume he wasn't until I knew for sure. Because if I didn't, I wasn't sure I could go on.

Death was too good for that cocksucker. My mind began to generate elaborate plans on how I could make him hurt and make him pay for all the lives he'd damaged. Torture devices, burning, pulling out entrails; they all swam before my mind. I didn't even realize that I was saying all that shit out loud until Miranda walked up and slapped me. My eyes focused back on reality and I stared straight at her.

She stared right back. "It doesn't matter how Chris dies. So stop wasting time with this dramatic bullshit. That's his game. And if there is anything that I've learned from you, it's that you never let the other guy set the rules."

"But Dave's already dead. I know he is!" I wailed.

"Why" asked Miranda. I stared at her again baffled. "Why do you think Dave is already dead? Chris said if you surrendered, he'd let Dave go."

"Why?" I screamed. "Dave's already dead because any intelligent person would have already…"

Marcus interrupted me. "At what point has Chris ever been intelligent?" I blinked. He continued. "Mindy – stop thinking with your heart. If you can't focus on this, if you can't let go of the crazy, then I'm just going to call in the SWAT teams. At least there would be a chance Dave would get out of there alive.

I took a deep breath. "Sorry. I'll keep it under control. OK – back to the plan. Marcus – equipment. Miranda - take Bethany and disappear." I looked over at Dr. Gravity. "And as soon as we're out of site, call an ambulance for Marty. I think he could use the rest."

I started walking away and then turned back toward them. "Some fucking vacation, huh?"

Bethany chased after my and tried to tackle me to the ground. She doesn't weigh more than 50 lbs soaking wet so it didn't make that much impact on me. But I stopped and wrapped my arms around her as the tears started to fall from both of us.

"Bring him back!" Bethany managed to choke out. "And even if you can't, please, you come back, OK? Promise?" I could see her eyes begging me to say yes. And I wanted to. I really did. But I figured that another broken promise just might shatter her. So I gave her the truth.

"Like I said, I'm going to do my best." I said shakily. "And my best is pretty fucking good. But I have to admit that I don't know for sure if I'll be able to pull it off. Miranda will take care of you in case…. Marcus can help…" I trailed off looking into her eyes. I'd already told her these things. There was more that she wanted to hear from me that somehow was really hard for me to say right now. Probably because saying it right now when she might never see me again was somehow more intense. "Bethany? I love you. I love you like you were my own little girl. I want to be your mommy forever. And Dave… He loves you too and wants to always be there for you. But we don't always get what we want. If the worst happens, and I know you've seen the worst before, don't ever forget how much we love you, OK? I'll always be with you. Just like your first mommy. You can still feel her in your heart, right? Watching over you?" I asked. She nodded with tears continuing to trickle down her face. "Good." I gave her one final fierce hug and then Miranda, who had silently joined us, took Bethany's hand and led her away.

I blinked a few times and used the back of my hands to push the tears away. Hit-Girl didn't cry. She didn't have time for it. She was too strong, too brave, for this weakness shit. But then I remembered crying some with Big Daddy while he was dying. And all the other times when pain and grief – all of these weak emotions had pushed their way past my defenses and overwhelmed me. I remembered how I'd felt when I thought I'd never recover from the bullet to the head.

There was strength in those feelings. Power in caring. Dave had pulled me out of my downward spiral. He'd taught me what being loved and cherished felt like. He'd opened himself up to save me and it was only though his gift that I'd been able to open myself up to Bethany. And now Dave was under Chris's power. There was no way I was going to let that stand.

The tears were gone, replaced by a resolution to find some way to pull of the impossible. As in the past, it was time to stop being Mindy and start being Hit-Girl. It was time to be the hero. So I held my head high and started walking.

I walked a couple hundred yards from the park and for once, the luck gods smiled at me. A taxi tried to shoot past me, saw me waving, and managed to skid to a halt not too much past me. He even put it in reverse and came back to pick me up instead of making me walk the rest of the way to him. I climbed in and had him take me to the nearest place that rented Mopeds.

Yes. A Moped. Because who the fuck would ever expect Hit-Girl to be riding a fucking moped. It was time to play my game.

My phone served double duty as a GPS as it gave me directions to Imperial Tower. I stopped along the way for a pair of sunglasses and a kind of fluffy hat. It wasn't much of a disguise but I didn't have time for shipping in shit with Amazon Prime or anything. I had to go with whatever was handy. So then I put-putted that stupid fucking scooter around the Imperial Tower, noting that it was 9 stories tall and had several taller buildings nearby that I might be able to infiltrate. It also had a big courtyard in front with an absolute fuckload of thugs in white clothing trying to look like they weren't thugs. Epic fail on that score. Chris had himself a storm trooper legion to defend himself. No way was I getting through those doors, regardless of any disguise.

I mean, I got into D'Amico's building the first time dressed as a schoolgirl, but I was old enough now that the best I'd manage was 'Slutty Schoolgirl' and that would probably just get me raped out behind the building. Or in front of the building. These guys didn't look shy or subtle.

Hopefully I'd still get a chance to play Slutty Schoolgirl for Dave someday. I'd always been meaning to surprise him with it. Shit. Wasted opportunities. Damn it, I needed to focus on could do now instead of what I should have done in the past.

I parked at a nearby coffee shop and got something to eat while I mulled over how to get in without getting Dave killed instantly. I also picked up a pack of Tums because that heart burn would not go away. Ugg. Always fun to feel sick before a job. I shoved that thought back down because I didn't have time for it. I needed a plan. I looked at the table across from me. A girl about my height and build was sitting there reading a script. Didn't look much like me otherwise. For the first time since that first phone call, I smiled. And then I got up and joined her at her table.

Marcus called about an hour later letting me know where the hotel room was with my gear. I told him to hold tight and then Peg (the girl at the table) and I grabbed a cab and headed to meet him. I actually considered for a moment that I was forgetting to return the moped, but, hey, fuck it. I'd paid extra for the insurance.

When we got to the room, I left Peg alone for a few minutes and explained my plan to Marcus. He went batshit. "Min? The girl doesn't look a thing like you! She's a brunette and her face is mostly freckles. How the hell is this supposed to fool Chris?

I pushed his objections aside. "Put her in a wig and mask and it'll be close enough. She's my size at least. Look, I don't have a better plan and unless you do, we're going with this. Marcus blathered on for a few more minutes and then had to admit he didn't have a better idea. So we went back into the room and explained to Peg that it was her lucky day. She had just been cast as Hit-Girl in "Kick Ass – the Movie!"

I'd wanted it to be "Hit-Girl, the movie!", but I'd had to agree with Marcus during our little argument that Kick Ass was more famous then I was.

I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about Dave being more famous than I am.

Regardless of the movie name, Peg bought it. Seriously bought it. Started gushing about how she'd come to Hollywood in the hope of being discovered and that being found on the street was exactly like it had happened to some favorite actress of hers. I mean, this girl was so fucking dumb that I was considering setting her up on a date with Todd once this was all over. Two people that stupid deserved each other.

I even resisted telling her that she was technically in Anaheim and not in Hollywood. And that was really tough because the look of disappointment on her face would have been fucking priceless.

You might think I'm being a bit callous by thinking such silly things while Dave was probably either very injured or very dead. But if I spent any real time thinking about how unlikely this was to work, I was going to totally fucking lose it.

Anyway, Marcus and I continued our bullshit story about how we were trying to get some buzz going about the movie and that as part of it, we'd set up a fake press conference at the local police station. Hit-Girl was going to turn herself in and we'd use the footage as part of the trailer. Peg loved the idea and was even more thrilled when I gave her my spare purple jacket, mask, and wig that I'd packed with my gear. Marcus made a few calls to the local new stations while I called a limo company to come pick him and Peg up. Hit-Girl had to arrive in style, right?

By this time it was getting dark, which was just as I'd planned. They left in the limo and I geared up. Marcus's rental car got me within a few blocks of Imperial Tower and then I broke into the building behind it. They weren't looking for me so it was easy. Then I went up the roof and pulled out my cell phone. I called Marcus and then three way called Chris so Marcus could listen in.

My voice sounded like crap. All teary and weepy and broken up. Partially because I was acting and mostly because I'd managed to throw up on the way up the fucking stairs in the building. God damn jalapeno nachos. I'm never eating those again.

"I… I… Please, Chris, please don't hurt Dave. Please? I mean, he was almost your friend once."

Chris just growled at me. "And then he killed my dad."

"And your dad killed mine. And you killed Dave's. Doesn't that sort of wipe the slate clean? Look… please. I'm turning myself in. Turn on the news – I'm sure I'll be on it in a minute."

I hung up and opened the news app on my phone. It didn't take long for the live broadcast of "Hit-Girl" confessing her crimes to the media began to play. Marcus stood behind Peg while she said her lines to the very real reporters and managed to look both stern and sad. Peg in my extra purple wig, mask, and jacket, hammed up the part tremendously and looked to be having the time of her life. I suppose she didn't look that much like me to start with, but the wig and mask made her similar enough that if you expected it to be me, then that's what you would see. Shit. Maybe I should have found a better actress but I didn't have a lot of time to plan. Too late now. Finally, the police came out of the station and took her inside, where we'd already told her to explain it was all a publicity stunt and that she hoped they'd all come see the movie when it was done. Marcus just faded into the background.

I waited 20 minutes and then called Chris back from a burner cell phone. I didn't even let him say hello, just jumped into conversation.

"OK! I did it! I fucking did it! And you're getting my one fucking phone call from jail." I worked up a bit of weeping and then continued. "Let him go. Please?"

He just laughed. "You stupid bitch. You thing that's it? I'm going to let him go because you walked into the station? I've seen you escape from much worse. What I'm going to do is wait until the trial is over and you're convicted. Then I'll release your precious Dave. But if they give you anything less than the death penalty, then I'll cut something important off before I let him loose. No conjugal visits for you!" Jeez this guy didn't know when to quit.

"Just prove to me he's alive! Or I'll be out of this building before this call ends!" I fake cried while talking. Inside, I was tense instead of sad. This had to work.

"Fuck. OK. Fine. Just a minute." I peered closely into my binoculars at Imperial Tower and saw a light turn on in one of the offices." Gotcha. I thought. I knew you'd have him in a dark room. You are so fucking predictable. Then I heard Dave's voice and suddenly I was fighting off real tears.

"Mindy? Hon?" Dave managed. I could tell from his voice that he was in pain. I managed some sort of noise that must have sounded like me because he continued. "Sweetie? Don't give in! Don't do what he says! It's a tra…." I heard the sound of a fist striking flesh and then after a few thumps, Chris was back on the line.

"You know what to do. He stays alive until you die." Chris hung up.

I blinked away the tears again and reached into my bag of gear. It was Hit-Girl time.

I was ready.


	17. Chapter 17

I was on top of a room a couple of stories taller than the building Dave was trapped in. Imperial Tower. Or Imperial Center. Sorry, I've got a really bad fucking headache right now and so I can't 100% remember which. The Motherfucker was the Star Wars nut, not me.

Sorry if I just offended true Star Wars nuts – You guys are awesome. Chris…. Not so much.

I reached into the heavy fucking bag that I'd carried up all of those steps and pulled out a line thrower. If you don't know what that is, think about those crossbows with grappling hooks you see in movies but instead the hook being propelled by a bow, there was an explosive charge that propels the hook. I took careful aim (since I really didn't want to go back down the stairs, get the spare, and then carry it back up the fucking stairs…) and pulled the trigger. The hook sailed out across the darkening sky and then banged off the concrete side of the building. Then it slowly fell in a graceful arc which ended with it smashing into the windows of the building that I was in. The amount of shattering glass was impressive. But by some strange quirk of fate, fifteen bad guys didn't come boiling out of Chris's building see what all the racket was about. Swearing under my breath, I trudged back down to get the spare while heartburn attempted to ravage the inside of my chest. Overall it wasn't a lot of fun.

Fifteen minutes later, a second hook and rope sailed through the sky. This time it landed on the roof and the hook opened properly. My nervous stomach gave a twinge of relief. I pulled the rope slowly toward me until the hook caught nice and solid. Then I tied the rope off, hooked up the zip line handle, and launched myself off the building to go and rescue. I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn't even look down to admire the view.

Fuck it. I lied. I looked. It's still amazing to me that I get to do this shit in my life and it seemed like a waste to not enjoy it. Especially since my mindset right now was to try to ignore all of the things that were probably going to go wrong and try to enjoy the last 10 minutes or so of my life before some fuckface blew me away. So, I admired the sodding view even though Dave (and I) might be about to die. Sue me.

Actually, don't. I don't have a lawyer.

Trying to stay with the funny and not focus on the suck. Because I'm not going to make it out of this place alive if I lose it.

Once I was across, it was only the work of a few seconds to pull myself the rest of the way up onto the roof. Then I yanked up the equipment bag that had zipped along with me. Out of it I pulled out four flash bang grenades that I'd rigged with some string and a remote control servo motor. I hung each of them off the building above one of the ground entrances. The idea was that I'd send a signal to the motors which would then pull out the pin and let the grenade fall. Hopefully it would hit the ground before it went off and convince the assholes inside that I was trying to get in one of the front doors. I was really counting on it as a distraction. But if it went off like halfway down, it would be confusing as fuck. I'd gotten some math geek in a chat room to figure out how fast they would drop and tried to make sure I had the string the correct length since the cocksucker just wouldn't stop flirting with me the whole time we were talking, I wasn't 100% sure how much he'd checked his figures. It made me want to stomp his nuts but that was pretty damn difficult through a Wi-Fi connection. I did make a note to track him down if I ever get the chance and flatten his balls.

Anyway, this falling grenade thing wasn't the most elegant plan I'd ever come up with but it was the best I could do with what I had to work with. I didn't have Claymore's with a detonator like Arnold Schwarzenegger would have had. I didn't have C4 or anything else really effective. I had flash bangs and some motors that I'd torn out of some of Bethany's toys. I supposed that the worst that could happen would be that the transmitter signal wouldn't even reach them through the concrete of the building and all I'd really done was hang up some really demented Christmas decorations. Oh well. It was worth a try.

That done, it was time for my final prep. I checked both my pistols, making sure that each one was secure and wouldn't fall out if I got into a fight. Or thrown into a wall. That sort of shit. Then I unpacked the rest of the gear and attached it to my belt and harness. More flash bang grenades. A few smoke grenades. Three throwing knives and one fighting knife, a Sykes-Fairbairn that I'd intended to just keep as a collector's item but was too good not to use. I loved my sword staff too much to have shipped it so that was all I had. Well, that and a silenced H&K MP-5. A small sub machinegun to the non-gun nuts out there. Not exactly, but close enough. The SAS and Navy SEALS liked them so I figured that I should be good.

A couple of minutes with a lock pick had the roof access door open. I spent a long moment looking down into the darkened opening. Great. More fucking stairs. Was this an assault or a workout? Well, at least I was going down.

I went down three floors and ran into zero guards. Standard Chris stupidity; he hadn't even considered the fact that someone might come in from above. That carelessness actually offended me for a few minutes until I remembered that I needed him to be doing an absolutely fucktastic job at this or I was basically dead. Sometimes it's easy to lose perspective.

From counting the windows to where I'd seen the light for Dave, he should be one more floor down. I went trudged down a few more stairs and then took a moment to breath. Then I peered through the little window in the door to make sure there wasn't anyone waiting on the other side. It was clear. I tried the handle. It didn't budge. I'd kind of expected this so out came my trusty lock pick set again but this time, my pick broke off in the lock with a mocking snap. I growled under my breath, trying not the scream. Then through the window, I saw a guard wandering down the corridor. OK. New plan time. I would set off one of my string grenades and all the guards would go running. And this asshole would be nice and open the solid fucking fire door keeping me saving Dave. I positioned myself so that I could catch the door when it opened and flipped the first transmitter switch. Nothing happened. Fuck. But, I'd built these pretty fast so, one by one, I pressed the other three switches. Still nothing. Not a one of the fucking things had worked. Now what? I could try to blow the lock apart with the MP-5 but it would be really noisy and might take too long. My mind started racing through other plans, coming up with new ideas and then discarding them just as quick.

Seriously, you try coming up with an assault plan on a building you know nothing about in just a couple of hours! A good plan, I mean, not some half assed thing like I'd come up with. One that won't just get you killed. For example, Daddy and I had been studying D'Amico's building for months before I attacked it. We had blueprints. We had the elevators hacked so we could stop them on any floor we wanted. I begged and begged Daddy to build a scale model with little tiny people that you could push a button to blow them up but not even Daddy was crazy enough to give into that. On a side note, I actually built one after he died when I was depressed and really needed to stay busy. My mind kept racing in circles and my heartburn was racing at about the same speed. In fact, I got so wrapped up in planning that I almost missed it when the luck gods granted me their help.

The stairway door suddenly creaked open a little bit. I stared at it and then slowly raised my gun to cover anyone who might come through. But it wasn't a person who came through at first. It was a hand. With a cigarette. Holy fucking shit on a stick! My ass had just been saved by some cocksucker's oral fixation. Shit, maybe smoking really was useful! I waited another moment trying to breath as quietly as possible. Then paydirt. A head came through to take a pull off of that miracle cigarette. And just like that, I had a plan that didn't completely suck. I kicked hard at the door and heard a satisfying crunch as it impacted into his head. When it bounced back my way, I grabbed the door and shoved it behind me while I finished the guy off with a kick to his already injured head. No way was I taking a chance of the thing closing on me. Then I popped through the door, tracking my eyes and gun to both sides. Once I was sure it was clear, I glanced back at Mr. Smoker. He had a gun on his belt so he wasn't just some innocent. And while I was pretty sure he wasn't going to wake up, well… fuck it. I was Hit-Girl, not Wonder Woman. I swung my gun back and capped him in the head twice. Thanks for the assist with the door, but you picked the wrong team, asshole. And it was time for mama to get to work.

The place was like a fucking maze. Basically a really tall cubical farm. I dodged from wall to wall, desk to desk, staying as quiet as I could. I took out three more wandering guards, each of them with a single shot. That was really good because I didn't have all that much ammo. Then I heard a shout behind me and alarms started going off all over the place. I smiled as I dove for cover right before a shotgun blast decorated the wall with shrapnel. Time for plan B. Then I reached down to my belt and flipped the last switch I had there.

This one was actually connected to a real detonator, not some jury rigged piece of shit toy. I'd set my only real remote charge on the power lines outside before I'd started climbing all those fucking stairs. I heard a loud 'crump' and then all the lights went out. There were a few emergency lights but it was close enough. I flipped down my night vision goggles and went back to hunting. I managed to get one more before a stray bullet from one of them firing at shadows hit something in the AC system. Smoke or fog or some shit filled the hallways almost instantly. I shoved my goggles out of the way. It was better to rely on my actual eyes in all this crap.

Then the luck gods smiled on me again. I almost laughed out loud as red 'laser beams' started streaking down the hallways. These guys all had those fancy laser sights that project a little red dot on the target. Which I'll admit are actually pretty useful except that in all the fog, it was just a line tracing back and telling me where to shoot. Now I actually started to laugh. A bunch of assholes in white were trying to kill me with red beams shooting through the air. And they weren't coming anywhere near me!

This was like fucking Star Wars!

I gave a happy scream that would have impressed Han Solo. Then I trusted all of the instincts and training that years of long work, Daddy's training, and Dave's help had built into me. I went back to being the girl in D'Amico tower with nothing to lose. I let go. I shoved off from the floor and attacked.

I can't remember the next few minutes very clearly. There was a lot of screaming from the people I shot. That I remember. When the MP-5 was empty I used it to bludgeon the next guy I found to death. He made a LOT of noise. I put a throwing knife in another guy and then I pulled out one of my Beretta's as I sailed around the corner of what I figured would be the last corridor. I was right. I'd found the conference room. I put two bullets into the lock and then kicked open the door.

My headlong attack died right there. Chris was at the far end of a long table propped up in some sort of wheelchair and holding a gun to Dave's head. The only reason he could manage this was because Dave had beaten to shit and wasn't moving. Dave's eyes were closed and his head was lolled back without any strength to it. I saw his chest moving so I knew he wasn't dead. That was the only reason I'd stopped. I met Chris's eyes and they were completely filled with fear. That meant he would probably hesitate and give me a few moments to act. I tried to figure out whether I could take Chris out before he could kill Dave. After what seemed like minutes but was probably only moment, I decided that I could. My eyes swept across the room one more time to make sure that I hadn't missed anything before I took my shot.

I had missed something. Actually, I'd missed three somethings. One was a tall thin woman with dark hair lying crumpled on the floor. I couldn't see her face but my gut said it was Miranda. The other two 'somethings' were a thug in a red coat and a girl he was holding that wouldn't stop moving. I stared but I couldn't figure out who it was. Actually, that's bullshit. I knew exactly who it was. I just couldn't accept it. Then time stopped. I looked over at Miranda's body and stupidly wondered how she could even be here. She was hiding. Taking care of Bethany. Keeping her safe…. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! Where in the fuck was Bethany? I looked back at the last guard and his struggling burden. A burden that had obviously been screaming out a torrent of curse words the entire time I'd been here but only just registered with my hearing now. I didn't think time could go any slower than stopped but it could.

"Fuck you fucking cock sucking fucker!" the bundle I now knew was Bethany screamed. "Fuck you fucking let me fucking go! I'll fucking kill you, you fucker!" Unable to comprehend much more, I remembered trying to teach her not to use the same swear word more than once in the same sentence. The guy finally managed to grab her left arm and twisted it behind her back. He yanked it up and she yelled in pain.

"Drop the gun." He said, staring clearly into my eyes. "Or I pull the arm off." I'm ashamed of the fact that even under that threat, I didn't immediately comply. Maybe I was in shock. I try to tell myself that now when I stare into the darkness but I usually decide I'm lying. I couldn't move at that moment. That seems more likely. As I stood there with the gun still pointed directly at Chris's head, the sadistic fucker smiled. Then his eyes tightened and he yanked her arm farther up. I heard a bone snap. Bethany screamed. My world went black. A moment later, I heard a thump as my pistol bounced off the carpet. My mind hadn't let go but my heart had.

I think the guy told me to sit down because shortly after that I was sitting in a chair. Bethany wasn't making any more noise now. She seemed to have passed out from the pain. Her voice was replaced with Chris's was screaming at me, going over all the ways he was going to kill me, rape me, and torture me. All the terrible shit he'd do to Dave, Bethany, and any other person who happened to fucking walk by. I quickly realized though that he wasn't the one in control. That was the fucker in red. He tossed Bethany to the floor where she moaned feebly and then pulled a large pistol out of his belt. After a moment of us all staring at one another, he swung the gun sideways and knocked Chris out cold.

He growled in horrid Russian accent. "You have no idea how much shit I've put up with to meet you. Well, more to kill you than meet you, but, I've got to admit it's an honor to be in the company of such a famous killing machine. If somebody had to kill Olga, I'm glad it was you."

"Olga?" I managed.

"You knew her as Mother Russia."


	18. Chapter 18

Holy fuck. Father Russia, or whatever the fuck he called himself, had orchestrated all of this to get revenge for me killing Mother Russia. I'm thinking this is actually what that 'surreal' word in my test packet for the GED meant. I'd have to fix my answer if I ever got back to the safe house again.

Dave was out cold and looked like he'd really been beaten to shit. Which was kind of a normal look on him unfortunately. Chris/Motherfucker was also unconscious thanks to Father Russia pistol whipping him. Bethany's left arm was twisted kind of funny and she'd collapsed next to Father Russia. Miranda was lying on the floor. I couldn't see her face and from the way she was lying, I couldn't tell if she was breathing. But she did have her clothes on so hopefully she hadn't been repeated raped before… before whatever had happened to her had happened to her… That was a cumbersome thought but my mind wasn't ready to wrap itself around the word 'dead' right now. The word was too short and simple to handle.

I decided to focus on the things I could control. "So, umm, you're Father Russia?" I asked him while twisting in my chair slightly so he wouldn't notice that I had a second gun in the holster on my left hip. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on my side.

"I am Oleg, not Father Russia. That Mother Russia bullshit was created by that clown over there and I'm not going to be a part of it." He said. "And that other pistol you're trying to hide. Pull it out with two fingers on your left hand – butt only. Then drop it on the floor. You can add your knives and any other weapons you might be hiding to the pile also. Be careful and be thorough. I'm going to search you in a few minutes and anything that I find still on you I will use to rape you with repeatedly."

"Well, wasn't this guy a ball of sunshine?" I thought while carefully removing my weapons. On a lark, I made sure that when I dropped the pistol that it bounced over near Bethany. Maybe if she woke up at the right moment she could toss it back over to me or something. It wasn't much of a plan but beggars really couldn't be choosers at this point. And I kept one knife that I had hidden inside my body armor. Not that I wanted to be raped with it but I figured that once we got to the searching part, rape was probably in my future anyway. Hopefully I could make something happen before then. Plus, it was my smallest knife so maybe it wouldn't be as bad…

Wow. That was a stupid thought. As if there's a less bad way to be raped. Maybe that bullet did do some brain damage...

I glanced over at Dave again, desperately hoping that he'd miraculously wake up and save my ass from being raped and killed. He stirred a little bit and I actually got my hopes up a little before he went back to not moving. I had no real plan at that point. I didn't even have a kitchen cabinet to hide in like I did at D'Amico's place.

"So, Hit Girl. Before I kill you, I have to know. How did a little shit like you kill the great Olga? You should have been like a mosquito to her."

"I'm fast. So, I moved as quick as I could and tried to stay behind her. Still, she was a tough opponent. You can be proud of how she died."

Oleg stood up and began pacing, waving his gun around while he did so. "Olga too was fast. Very fast. And much, much stronger. She should have crushed you. I don't understand. Explain it better and I'll kill you quicker. But I will still kill you. And Kick Ass. And this Motherfucker/Emperor idiot. I might let the little girl live though if the story is good enough."

My eyes grew wide as I realized that this guy wasn't some sort of villain who would toy with us or put us in an elaborate death trap that we might escape. This wasn't James Bond time. Oleg was a cold killer and once I'd told him what he wanted to know, the best that we could hope for was two bullets to the back of the head. Any other death would be just as certain but we'd have to suffer first. I began to spin the story of fighting Olga into the longest one that I possibly could. I detailed every strike and every parry. I described the room and the fight that had been going on around us. He was eating it up though so I just kept going. Eventually I was just making things up so that I'd get to live for a few seconds longer. I mean, this was it. This was the end. There wasn't any cavalry coming to save our butts and only my voice recounting the story was still keeping us alive. Dave wasn't moving. Chris wasn't moving. Miranda wasn't moving. Bethany wasn't….

Bethany moved. Just a little bit, but she definitely moved. I kept the story going, hoping that maybe she'd move again. She did. Just a little bit, but she moved. Then her eyes opened. I could see the pain of her broken arm in them but despite that, she was alert. She locked her eyes with mine and I moved my head slightly toward the gun that I'd dropped as close to her as possible. A microscopic nod followed that and her good arm started moving toward the gun. To keep Oleg distracted, I amped up the story I was telling by talking about how strong Mother Russia had been. I detailed how she'd smashed me into scaffolding and into the ground. The more I detailed my own pain, the more engrossed Oleg became. Finally, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Bethany had the gun. Her eyes found mine again and all I saw behind them were questions. She didn't know what to do now that she had it. But I did. And I realized that I'd known this might happen for a very long time. I hated that it was necessary but it was the only option that we had left.

"And then I took a step back from Mother Russia and gave her a warning shot." I said, as clearly as I could.

Oleg looked confused. "Warning shot? How did you do that? You said you'd already lost your gun."

Bethany's eyes grew wide, then narrowed as she accepted what she needed to do.

"It's simple." I said, more for Bethany's benefit than for his at this point. "I picked up the gun, aimed it carefully, and pulled the trigger." Bethany's arm started moving.

"I still don't understand. Your gun was close enough to pick up or was it a different gun that you used?"

I locked eyes with Bethany, then inclined my head toward Oleg. "Now."

"Now? What do you mean now?" said Oleg. But just as he finished the word, a bullet from my gun clutched tight in Bethany's hand ripped through Oleg's skull and made sure it was the last thing that he ever said.

I rushed over to Bethany and took the gun out of her hands. Then I gently helped her to sit up. She whimpered when her broken arm moved but otherwise she was pretty tough for a little kid. Then Dave started stirring. I guess the sound of the gunshot woke him up. He looked over, saw that Oleg was dead, then looked around some more and found us. He smiled. "You did it, Hit Girl. I knew you would. I knew you'd kill that bastard."

I shook my head no. "Bethany did it. She saved us. I told her to give him a warning shot and she did."

Dave chuckled a bit and then tried to stop when it made his insides hurt too much. "Just like you did to that mugger on the street, huh?" he asked Bethany. "One warning shot to the head. I think I need to apologize to you again for getting mad that day."

I heard some noises like footsteps far away from the room but coming closer. "Looks like somebody might have heard that shot. We need to move." I stood up and first pulled Dave to his feet. He was steadier than I'd expected him to be. Then I pulled Bethany up but she looked like she was about to pass out from the pain in her arm. Somebody was going to have to carry her. I looked over to Dave. "Can you carry her?" I asked.

Dave shook his head no. "I've got to carry Miranda. You'll have to carry Bethany." He walked over and with a groan of pain, knelt down, grabbed Miranda and pulled her over his shoulder into a fireman's carry. He didn't even take the time to check if she was alive or dead. He glanced back at me and I shook myself out of my stupor, holstered my gun and picked up Bethany.

We were about to leave when I remembered Chis. He looked so pathetic lying there on the floor unconscious. I could tell that he'd lost his legs to that shark attack. That had obviously destroyed what little sanity he'd had left. He belonged in a hospital, not a prison. He looked so peaceful that you could almost forget all of the pain and destruction that he'd caused. Almost. Not quite. I understood some of what he'd done. I'd pursued revenge for my father's death too. I understood what a hunger for vengeance could do to your soul. I'd seen it destroy Big Daddy and any chance I'd ever had at a normal life. And just like me, he'd been raised in a pretty fucked up manner. That meant that what he'd become wasn't entirely his fault. Still, he was an adult now and he'd made his own choices. And I'd made mine.

I shifted Bethany a bit on shoulder and drew my pistol. And then I put two bullets into Chris's brain.

I don't care if you want to call it murder. I don't care if you want to call it cold blooded. I'll call it as it was. Chris was a rabid dog. It might not be his fault that he ended up that way but by the end, the only way to stop him was to put him down. Because if I didn't, he'd somehow manage to come back. And also, because I'd promised Miranda that I'd remove him from this earth. I didn't know yet whether she was alive or dead but it didn't matter. I'd made a promise and it needed to be kept.

The noises outside started getting closer, probably because of the sound of the two additional shots. I looked over at Dave, afraid that he'd be standing there judging me for murdering a cripple lying on the floor. But he wasn't. He was just ready to go. And so we did.

I don't exactly remember how we got out of that building. It shouldn't have even been possible, especially since we were both carrying someone. But somehow we dodged around whoever was left and ran out of the front entrance with a few remaining guards hot on our heels. I thought we were toast right then when an explosion pushed us onward and knocked our remaining pursuers out of the fight. One of the grenades that I'd hung off the building attached to motors from Bethany's broken toys had finally fallen and exploded. Whether it was the universe finally doing something right for once or just because the transmitter on my belt was outside that stupid concrete building and could reach it, I don't know. I'm not going to worry about the why. I'm just going to be happy it happened.

We ran until we found someplace safe to hide and then I called Marcus to come and get us. Dave finally got to check Miranda out and she was still alive. Bethany explained that when they had been grabbed, the bad men had given Miranda some sort of shot. That was probably why she was still out cold.

Marcus found us a doctor who would keep his mouth shut and got all of us patched up. It was going to cost me a pretty penny but since the guy had basically agreed to open up his office and only take care of us there until we left, I guess it was worth the cost. Bethany was delighted by her cast insisted that we all sign it right away. When Miranda finally woke up, we explained what had happened and that Chris was dead. He could never hurt her again. Somehow that made her weep like a lost child and I didn't feel even the slightest bit jealous when Dave sat down next to her and held her until her tears had run their course. How could I be upset? He was my Dave. Taking care of people was what he did and I wouldn't want him any other way.

Finally Miranda got herself back under control and once her eyes had recovered from crying, there was a peacefulness in them that I'd never seen before. That look actually turned to love when Marty finally managed to join us. He took over for Dave in comforting Miranda and pretty soon we were all in good enough shape to leave. I'd even calmed down enough that I wasn't going to kick Todd in the nuts for telling some stranger where Marty had gone on vacation.

Well, not too hard anyway. He still deserved it for that 'save himself for me' bullshit.

The one thing that still hadn't gone away was that heartburn I'd had the entire time I'd been trying to rescue Dave. As we were getting ready to go, I mentioned it to Dave and he pointed at that since we had one on hand, I should probably talk to the doctor. I grumbled and finally gave in.

The doctor checked me out, took some blood and had me piss in a cup. But nothing was obviously wrong with me so he gave me some antacids and said he'd call me in a day or two once he could get the stuff over to a lab.

I chartered us a private jet home. That was expensive too but we were all too banged up to fly commercial. It would have attracted way too much attention. As the plane lifted off, I finally started to relax. Since I was sitting next to Dave, I just snugged into his shoulder. He put his arm around me and before I know it, I'd fallen asleep, content in the knowledge that when I woke up, I'd be safely back in New York.


	19. Chapter 19

Do you know what you find when you climb near the top of the spire on the top of The Empire State Building?

Fresh air. A brisk wind. And an extreme amount of bird shit.

Do you know what you don't find?

Children. Well, at least you usually don't find them up there. Today, on the other hand…

No, I hadn't brought Bethany up here. Admittedly, if she found out that I'd climbed up here and hadn't brought her, I'd end up hearing about it for weeks. And if Dave found out that I'd climbed up here at all, I'd hear about it from him for even longer…

But fuck it, I needed somewhere to think and if the top of The Empire State Building worked for a gigantic hairy ape, then it would work for me too. Okay, that doesn't really make any sense. Do I already have pregnancy brain?

Oh yeah. If that last line was confusing you, I'll just go ahead and say it. I was pregnant. Preggers. Knocked up. Bun in my cute little oven. About to spawn. One of Dave's baby batter bombs had finally exploded in the right place… Or the wrong place. Depends on your perspective… However you wanted to say it, there was a tiny little life growing inside of me. And I didn't have the slightest fucking clue what to do about it.

The doctor from California had called to tell me that my heartburn was exactly what whole bunch of you had thought. Basically, my digestive system was really unhappy with all the new hormones that were coursing through it. I mean, it had barely gotten used to puberty and strawberry cream churros dipped into peanut buttery and jelly soda. Seriously. You can get them at Disneyland and they are friggin amazing. I've got to figure out a way to get them shipped into New York. Well, by them I mean the soda and the churros. Disney doesn't sell puberty…

Although it's a funny thought when you get right down to it…

Anyway, I was sixteen and pregnant. Never again could I sit back and mock those girls on reality TV. Which I suppose hadn't been all that nice when I'd been doing it but damn it, I'd thought that something like this couldn't happen to me. I was smart. I was careful. I was amazing.

I was going to be a mother. Not a second mother like I'd been to Bethany but a from the start, birthing, breast feeding, diaper changing mother.

Fuck! No, not fuck. No more fucking. Fucking was what had got me into this problem in the first place. Not that I wanted to call my baby a problem… The little squirt didn't deserve that….

I'm guessing that you've figured out by now why I'd needed to find a quiet place to think. I was totally and completely freaking out.

The doctor had called shortly after we'd gotten home. He'd been somewhat scared to tell me, possibly because I'd still been holding onto my machine gun while he'd examined me. But I guess being able to tell me over the phone was a little bit safer. The conversation had gone something like this.

Him: Miss Hit-Girl, I got back your tests. You're pregnant.

Me: Are you sure?

Him: Yes. Are congratulations in order?

Me: I don't know.

Then I'd hung up the phone. And just kind of sat there for a while. Dave and Bethany were both still asleep. The trip had taken a lot out of all of us. I wrote them a note saying that I had to run some errands and that I'd be back later and then quietly slipped out of the safe house. Then I'd wandered around New York until finally I'd ended up here, hanging from a rope over a thousand feet from the ground in a place made famous by a huge ape. An ape that I was going to start looking like when I got all big and pregnant. A tear tried to slide down my cheek but I wiped it away. I was NOT going to cry about this baby.

Shit.

I looked down and realized that I was being an idiot. Responsible mothers to be did not suspend their asses this far above that much concrete. Really, a responsible person wouldn't do most of the things that I did as a matter of course. But I'd figure all of that out later. Right now, it was time to go home and tell Dave. And not in any cute or funny way. I'd seriously screwed with his head when I'd done that whole fake pregnancy thing a while back and he deserved a proper conversation this time.

Oh my god I hope he doesn't assume I'm kidding….

Once I'd gotten back down the building, I grabbed a regular churro from a street vendor and called Miranda while I walked toward home.

"Hey, can you watch Beth? Dave and I need to have a little talk?"

"Is everything okay?" asked Miranda.

"I don't know." I repled. That seemed to be my go to answer right now.

"You're pregnant, aren't you?"

I tried not to spit churro on the people around me. I only partially succeeded. "Umm…." I replied. Shit, my conversations were getting wittier and wittier.

"Admit it!" she pushed.

"I can't." I replied. "I have to talk to Dave first."

"You mean you might…"

"I mean I have to talk to him first before I talk to anyone else. He deserves that. So shut the hell up and agree to watch the kid, alright?"

Miranda laughed a bit at that. "I'll come by and pick her up."

"Pretend it's your idea. Tell Dave you want to spend the day with her."

"I know the drill."

I finalized the plans with Miranda and then wandered around a bit more until she'd called and let me know that she had Bethany. Then I returned to my home.

Dave was sitting on the couch applying an ointment to an impressive number of bruises. He looked up when I came in, smiled, and then went back to his business. That boy had been pummeled enough times that he knew what he needed to do to get better. Part of me wanted to do that whole wander around the room all nervous like but I'd walked off most of that while waiting for the coast to be clear.

I sat down on the chair across from him and then looked at him carefully. He was tall. He was strong, both emotionally and physically. He was brave. He was going to be a great dad. I was probably going to be a basket case but he was going to be a great dad and so we would all be okay. I carefully modulated my voice to make sure that while I sounded happy, there was absolutely no humor in what I said to him. "I'm pregnant."

Dave's hand squeezed on the ointment tube and it squirted all over him. He didn't notice. "It's not a joke this time, is it?" he more said to me more than asked me.

"Definitely not. I promised I'd never do that again. I am truly pregnant. The doctor from California called earlier. Apparently it's what was causing all that indigestion."

"I thought women got morning sickness." Said Dave absently.

"Apparently I get afternoon sickness…. Maybe because my hours are so strange." I replied.

Dave looked at me with hope in his eyes. "Are we happy?" he asked.

"We're terrified." I replied. "And confused. And excited. And worried. And a fuck ton of other emotions. But I'm pretty sure that happy is in there too. That is, if you're happy too?" I said, trying to hide the fear in my voice. We'd talked about this a few times before but those had all been theoretical. This was real.

"Of course I am!" Dave said. He stood up, picked me up, and whirled me in a circle. Gently though, I could tell the difference. Then he sat me down and finally noticed all the ointment on his shirt. "I'm guessing this will be a funny story we can tell the little sprog someday." he said and grabbed a towel to clean up. When he put the towel down, I saw his gaze catch all the guns on the wall. "What about…" he gestured toward them.

"What about me being Hit-Girl?" I asked. "I'm not giving up being me but for now, all of the dangerous stuff will have to stop. Once the baby is here, well, I don't know. I suppose we'll figure that out when we get there."

Dave smiled. "That's just about the most adult answer you've ever given to a question. I'll be right back, okay?" I nodded and he went over into the bedroom for a few minutes. He came back with something in his hands and then he got down on one knee in front of me.

"Are you?" I asked, not able to get out any other words.

He nodded and held out the ring box that was in his hand. "This isn't because of the baby. And I'm hoping the fact that I already had the ring will prove that. I was going to propose in California until your little trip to crazytown before the reunion kind of spoiled the moment. I promised then that I would wait and propose at a more romantic time. Maybe this isn't it but I can't imagine going another minute without telling you how much I love you. Without telling you how much I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't care if that life is going to only be ten more seconds or a hundred years. All I do care about is sharing that life with you. I love you and I have to propose to you right now. I can't wait any longer because you are the best thing that has ever happened to me." Dave paused for a moment and opened the box. A delicate golden ring with a perfect little diamond winked at me. Hit-Girl. Will you please marry me?"

I smiled. And nodded. Actually, I nodded a lot because I couldn't get my voice to work and I didn't want him to somehow think I was saying no. Because I was saying yes. Definitely yes. A few tears slid down my cheeks but I just ignored them because they were happy tears and nothing to be ashamed of at all. I held out my hand and it shook a little as he slid the ring onto my finger. It was a perfect fit. Finally, I found my voice and managed to officially say the word. "Yes. Yes I'll marry you, Dave. And knowing that you were planning to propose before you found out I was pregnant makes this the most romantic moment that I could have possibly imagined. I didn't need a fancy restaurant and an orchestra. Or a quiet stroll on the beach with just the two of us. I just needed you. Needed us. Together. Now start kissing me, stupid. Before I start crying like a loon."

Dave picked me up and carried me into the bedroom where he made love to me. Gently but in a way that I knew he'd never let me go. Then we just lay together without needing to talk. Finally, my stomach decided to rumble and remind us both that I was hungry. We laughed and enjoyed a bit of naked picnic in the living room since Miranda hadn't brought home Bethany yet. We talked about how she might react to the double news of my pregnancy and Dave and I being engaged. Neither one of us was really sure how she would take it. Would she feel happy? Jealous? Like she was being replaced? It was a problem and one that we'd have to face soon.


	20. Chapter 20

Well, I was engaged. And pregnant. And honestly, pretty fucking happy considering the fact that I was going to be growing out of my costume soon. I wasn't thinking about the whole 'I'm going to get fat and ugly' thing that I've always heard starts to obsess pregnant woman. Maybe it was just because I'd only known I was pregnant for a few hours but I didn't think so. I viewed my body as a machine. So I'd never been upset when I'd started building muscles that most other girls didn't have and it changed my body shape. And I'd never been obsessed with being pencil thin. Healthy, yes. Tiny? No. So since the changes involved in pregnancy were natural, they didn't bother me.

Okay, I'm kind of full of shit. No one is completely happy with their body. They should be, but they never are. I'll confess that I've occasionally wished my boobs weren't quite so tiny. Not when I was fighting or anything, because then the damn things would probably just get in the way. But when I wore a dress or some fancy lingerie, well, it would be nice to have a bit more up top.

You know, being pregnant might just give me those boobs, at least temporarily….. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. You know, be careful what you wish for?

You may have noticed that I tend to focus on the little things. And I may have noticed you noticing…. So stop starting at my boobs…

Anyway, Dave and I were properly dressed now and Miranda had dropped Bethany back off with us about an hour ago. I'd meant to tell her about the baby as soon as she got here but discovered that I didn't really know how to start the conversation. Would Bethany be happy for us? Or would she feel like Dave, the baby, and I would become a family and she'd be left out in the cold? I had this odd feeing I should run out to the bookstore and buy a bunch of parenting books. But you know me. I'm not a patient person.

Dave and I sat down on the couch and asked Bethany to join us. She tried to snuggle in between us but I had her sit across from us so we'd be able to see her reactions. I resisted starting the conversation with something like "We need to have a talk" and just dove right in by holding out my finger with the engagement ring on it. "What do you think?" I asked.

"Pretty!" Exclaimed Bethany, pulling on my hand and bending it in different directions so the diamond would sparkle in the light. "Can I wear it sometimes?"

"No, Bethany. This ring is just for me. It's an engagement ring. It means I'm going to be getting married."

"Who to?" asked Bethany guilelessly.

"Who do you think?" I asked.

"Todd?" Bethany shot back with a grin.

Dave just started laughing at that so I punched him in the arm to make him stop. "No. Dave asked me to marry him."

"And you said yes right away? I mean, you didn't decide to wait a while and see if you got any better offers?" Said Bethany.

"Who else would crazy enough to…" was all Dave managed to get out before he collapsed back into laughter.

"I said yes. The wedding will probably be soon but we don't quite know when yet. Do you want to be part of the wedding?" I asked her. I hoped it was a good place to start. Every little girl wants to be a flower girl in a wedding at some point. Well maybe not all, but most… Heck, even I dreamed about it a few times and look at how screwed up my upbringing had been.

"Yeah! Can I be the objector?" she asked.

"The what?" was about as clever as my reply managed to be.

"Well, the person who does the marry'in always says that 'if any one objects, speak now or forever hold your piece'. Well, I want to be the person who gets to object!"

"Umm, we don't want anyone to object…" I sputtered.

"Oh! Okay. Can I be the person who beats up whoever objects then?" asked Bethany.

I began to realize I was losing control of the conversation. Dave was of no use. Tears of laughter were streaming down his face at this point as he tried to stop laughing long enough to breathe. Admittedly, it didn't help that I hadn't stopped smacking him since he'd started and each hit seemed to be even funnier to him than the previous one had. "How about if you be the flower girl?" I suggested.

Bethany thought about it. "If you want me to, I can. Can I go color now?"

I went slightly purple at that so Dave took a deep breath, got a hold of himself, and took over the conversation.

"We do want you to, Bethany. We want you to be a part of the wedding because we want you to be part of our new family. It will be Daddy…" he indicated himself. "Mommy" he indicated me. "Big sister.." he indicated Bethany.

It took Bethany a minute to process that and realize what it meant. "You mean you knocked her up?" Bethany shouted.

"Not the words I'd use, but yes." Dave replied smoothly.

"You do know what condoms are, right?" Bethany asked.

This time Dave went purple and I decided it was my turn to talk again. "We do. But I'm pregnant. And so, in addition to being a flower girl in the wedding, we want to officially ask you to be a big sister to the little jelly bean growing in my tummy. How does that sound?"

"Okay. Now can I go color?" Bethany replied.

"Sure." I said and then watched her wander off.

"That didn't quite go the way I expected it to." I confessed to Dave.

He shook his head, obviously bewildered. "Me either. Maybe it will just take her time to accept it."

And that was exactly it. Over the next few weeks, Bethany started to warm up to the idea of being a big sister. And then it was like someone flipped a switch and she suddenly began to talk about it incessantly. She'd ask what big sisters were supposed to do, what the first thing she said to the baby should be, and what she should do if the baby wanted to smoke a cigarette… We explained that big sisters took care of their loved their little sisters, that she could say anything she wanted except for cursing, and that we were most definitely going to have a non-smoking baby. It didn't seem to matter how many questions we had answered, she just came up with more. And she was so serious about them. It was as if all of these things had to be decided today and I wasn't even showing yet. Bethany had some funny ideas about the things she now needed to worry about. She even asked us if we thought we should raise the baby Jewish. I asked her if she even knew what Jewish was and she admitted that she didn't but still strongly felt that we had to assign a yes or a no to that question before we could have lunch. Not being Jewish, I went with no. Dave and I just listened to her and gave what answers we could whenever she was willing to listen to us. And we tried not to laugh when the questions got too absurd because for whatever reason, this is how she needed to process the changes that were going on around her. And we were happy to see her getting excited.

Miranda had also been pushing that she wanted to hold a wedding shower for Dave and I. It had started out as just being a bridal shower, but that would have meant that Miranda, Bethany, and I would have been the only ones there. I'd suggested that the three of us just go out for pizza at that point but Miranda wasn't having any of that. So she'd expanded it into a gathering of all of our friends, male or female. Once she'd come up with that idea, I'd tried to push that we just wrap in the baby shower as well and get all of this foolishness behind us. Dave and I had money, we didn't actually need any presents from our friends. But Miranda said no. The baby shower had to happen much closer to when the baby was due. Finally, I just gave in and let her plan whatever she wanted.

Who knew that getting engaged and knocked up involved so many social obligations?


	21. Chapter 21

"Look Mindy, if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. Stop yanking on it!" It was the day of the wedding and Miranda had been trying to get me dressed for forty fucking minutes and I was starting to panic. Nothing had gone well. The caterer's had shown up late, Dave had lost the rings for a rather crazy couple of hours, and now I had wardrobe problems. I pulled at it again but Miranda slapped my hands away. "You'll rip it!" she said, pulling it away from me and trying to keep it safe.

I stared at her face in shock. Then just to be spiteful, I grabbed it back out of her hands, pulled mightily, and ripped the thing in two. "Yep, you're right. I will." I said. "Not like it matters, I'm too fucking fat to fit into the thing."

Miranda rolled her eyes. "You're not fat. You're pregnant."

"That's what Dave says too but he still laughed like mad when Bethany made beeping noises when I was backing up a couple of days ago."

"Maybe he was just laughing to make Bethany happy?" Miranda tried to temporize.

"Possible…" I growled back. "But if so, was his passing out from lack of oxygen because he was laughing so damn hard for Bethany too?"

"He didn't?" Miranda gasped.

"He did. I actually had to pick him up and pound him on the back to get him breathing again. Then, while I was at it, I pounded a few other parts of him in revenge. Now that I think about it, he's still limping a little bit."

"Well, then that's all settled." Miranda said, clearly trying to move onto another subject. "But we still need to get you dressed."

Speechless, I looked toward the destroyed garment. Then I started to tear up. This was not how the day was supposed to go.

Miranda put her arm around me. "Calm down, OK? I told you this, Dave told you this, and Marcus told you this. You do NOT need body armor under your dress."

"But I'm Hit-Girl! People want to kill me!" I shot back. "What if someone takes a shot at me?"

"Nobody except your friends even know you're here. And frankly all of us are way too scared of you to try shooting at you."

"How do you really know?" I asked, still nervous.

"Because we all talked about it once. We decided that if we were going to kill you, we'd use a bomb. And we'd make sure it wasn't set to go off until we were at least 10,000 miles away in case something went wrong. So shut the hell up and come over here."

Finally giving in, I walked over and let her help me into my wedding dress. She pulled it up, zipped me, and then took a step back. Then I walked over to the mirror and looked at myself. She was right. It did look a lot better without all that black Kevlar underneath. Especially since it was backless. Still, I felt more naked in the stupid thing than I had on the stripper stage last night. This wedding was real. It wasn't a fantasy. It wasn't a daydream. Or a plan. Or something that was going to happen next month or next week. It was today. In just about ten minutes, I'd be walking down the aisle and not too long after that, committing my life to Dave.

I twirled again in the mirror. I looked fucking amazing, if I do say so myself. And this is my story I'm telling so it's not like there's someone else to fucking say it. So no twitting me on my vanity, OK? Facts are facts. I was gorgeous.

Ok…. Gorgeous may be pushing it… I wasn't even seventeen yet, I barely had boobs even with the baby coming, and for some absolutely stupid reason, about a year ago I'd decided that I would look good in bangs.

Bangs! No one looks good in bangs! I'm totally mental! It's gonna take fucking forever to grow them out completely! But today they were styled back and I didn't have to stare at them.

Fuck. The truth was, I felt like a watermelon squeezed into a garden hose. Not that the dress was too tight or anything. Once I'd removed the body armor, it fit just fine. But my mind was still worried about looking pregnant. So, confession time, the real reason I'd wanted to wear the body armor was so that I'd have an excuse if I looked shitty in the wedding photos. Kind of fucked up, right?

Actually, being pregnant is literally being fucked up… Or down. Or from behind... I suppose direction doesn't really matter but the fucking part is pretty key.

And before you ask, for me, I'm pretty sure it was against a wall for the little bean in my jelly bean jar…. TMI? Hey, admit it. You wanted to know…

Holy fuck was I nervous about this wedding.

I turned back to Miranda. "OK, I'm ready. We can get this show on the road." She nodded and started to go to let everyone know. I stopped her for a minute on her way out of the room and hugged her. "Thanks. Seriously, thanks. I don't think I could have gotten ready for this without you. I'm not that good with all this girly shit."

She hugged me back and then quickly walked out. I saw her discreetly wipe away a little tear as she headed toward where Todd had set up the music stuff. Just as the door swung shut, I heard her tell him that if he played Taps or some other joke song when Dave or I walked down the aisle, she was going to take her pool cue out of retirement and shove it so far up his ass that she could chalk it through his nose.

I love my friends.

There was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Marcus waiting. He was standing in for Big Daddy and giving me away. His eyes were tearing up a bit too as, unable to speak, he just held out his arm for me to take.

Hmm, maybe I should have bought a couple more boxes of tissues last week. Looked like this wedding was gonna be a gusher. As it was, I'd used most of what we had stuffing my bra. Oh well, live and learn. I'd plan better for the next wedding.

Not that there was gonna be another one… Shit.

Instead taking his arm, I hugged him too. Everyone was getting hugs today. I'd decided that somehow in my confused dreams last night. Today, of all days, I wasn't going to be afraid to show people how much I cared about them. "Thank you." I whispered in his ear. "Thank you for risking whatever you had to risk to be here today. It wouldn't have felt right to do this without you."

"You dad would have been… No, that's not right. Present tense. Your dad is proud of you. I know he's never truly left you. And so am I. I especially know that your mom would have been too. She loved weddings. Loved the commitment and the courage it took to take that leap of faith and marry someone. She's always been with you too.

Son of a bitch. Now I was tearing up. I shook my head a little and cleared my throat to give myself a chance to stop the tears. Miranda had claimed the mascara was waterproof but I was hoping I wouldn't have to test it. Then I broke the hug with a final gentle squeeze of thanks and took his arm properly so he could lead me out.

Bethany and Miranda were both waiting for me. Bethany's eyes got really wide when she saw me. I smiled and crouched down to her level. "It's wedding time. You remember what to do?" I asked, gesturing at the flower girl basket she was carrying.

Marcus was a little bit shocked at Bethany's reply. "Light fuse and get away. I remember."

"Umm, Mindy? She's kidding right?" He looked like he was going to say more but was interrupted by the music starting. I gave him my most innocent look then I shushed him into silence with a far less innocent one.

All of us got into place. I looked toward Dave waiting by the altar and my heart swelled. There he was. Waiting for me. Just like he always had and always would. Then the music shifted and our little procession began. Bethany walked down the aisle slowly, sprinkling rose petals as she went. Then Miranda walked down as my maid of honor and, stepped so that she was opposite Marty. They locked gazes for a moment and almost glowed. It made me wonder how long it would be before we'd be attending their wedding. Then the music changed one more time and it was my turn to walk. I don't really remember the walk down the aisle. What I do remember is watching Dave's eyes as I got closer and closer. They just got happier and happier. And so I let go of my own nervousness and drew my courage from him. Just as I'd done a thousand times before. Soon we were standing before each other. Staring into each other's eyes. Somehow for a few moments or for a few years or maybe even forever, it was just us together.

Finally we were interrupted by a rather loud cough by the priest. Dave and I broke from our reverie with a start. This caused all of our guests to laugh a little bit but I didn't mind one little bit. "Are you ready?" he said little pointedly. Dave and I nodded and he started his boring little speech about getting married. I won't bother to repeat it here because frankly, I didn't listen to it. No typical speech was going to crack into our crazy lives.

Before I knew it we'd reached the vow and ring exchange. By tradition, guys always go first. And while normally I'll tell tradition to go fuck itself with a twelve inch strap on, I wanted to make sure Dave committed first. I needed to somehow know that I wouldn't pour my heart and then have him run and scream like a little bitch with a skinned knee and shit…. Love your movies, Kevin Smith…. Anyway… I was just still afraid that he wouldn't really want me and that when he was faced with that final 'I Do' moment, he'd realize that I wasn't good enough for him. I was too young. I had too much blood on my hands. I wasn't the dream girl that guys jack off to in the middle of the night.

And what did that fucker do?

Go on, guess.

Ready?

The bitch started to cry.

OK, he didn't bawl or anything. But he teared up something fierce. Then, he pushed it all down so he could speak clearly. He took my hand gently. I thought it would be trembling but it was solid as a rock. Then he slipped my ring on, taking a moment to admire it on my finder. I'd chosen a seemingly delicate latticework of gold strands that, when combined, were stronger than solid gold. They held a diamond inside – blue white and decent in size. I mean, fuck it, we had the money. Might as well get a ring that meant something. Then he looked up and recited his vows to me.

"Dearest Mindy,

I promise to always be here for you. I promise to tickle you to make you laugh. Touch you to make you sigh. Comfort you when you are sick, even at the risk of my own life. I have fought with you. I have almost died with you. Now it's time for the final step; to make a life with you. And with our children. You've shown me the softer side that the rest of the world doesn't get to see…."

At this point, Bethany giggled… And then the rest of the guests started to laugh. Dave turned bright, bright red.

"I didn't mean, I mean, I…."

Finally, I started to laugh too. "It's okay. Just go ahead and finish your vows honey. We can talk about that softer side later."

Then Dave laughed and all the tension that I hadn't known was in the room drained away. This was wonderful and real and absolutely not perfect in the most perfect way imaginable… if you can follow that logic.

"I love you, Mindy. I am in awe of you. You inspire me. And if you really want to marry some silly idiot like me, then I want to marry you."

I rose up on my tiptoes and kissed Dave soundly to the profound amusement of our guests.

"That's for after!" Bethany hissed at me.

I looked down at her. "I will kiss my husband anytime I please, young lady." I said with a smile.

The priest interrupted me. "Miss? He's not quite your husband yet. So why don't we finish this little ceremony and get you two started on a wonderful life."

I nodded and turned to Miranda, who took my bouquet of flowers and handed me Dave's ring. I held it in my hand, looking at it. He'd chosen a simple band of gold with three diamonds inset in it. The center was larger and had a slight purple hint when you held it up to the light just right. That was me. Then there were two smaller diamonds, one on each side. One was for Bethany. And the other for the little life growing inside me. The first time I'd seen it I'd been speechless. But now I needed to be able to talk. I reached out with a trembling hand and grasped his solid one. As soon as we touched, my trembling stopped. He was my rock. I slid his ring onto his finger and then stared into his eyes.

"Dave… as I was writing my vows, I came to think about the first time we met. Let's say some people have more romantic ways to meet. And most of them aren't inside a crack house. Still, thinking back, I remember feeling butterflies in my stomach even though I was still a little girl. We grew to be friends and slowly those feelings evolved to where we are now; soon to be husband and wife.

You made me the woman I am today, as broken as I was, you stuck the pieces back together. Remember that night I snuck in your bedroom? You told me I was the strongest person you've ever met and that I could do anything? Truth is, you were right about that, but it only became true when we got together.

Soulmates are supposed to be like that, to complete each other. You complete me, because you're my soulmate, my other half, the love of my life and my partner forever

I still can't believe that this is happening to us, to me. Because I'm pretty tough to live with. Now I'm supposed to promise you to love you for the rest of my life but I'd rather promise to prove it to you every day with little things such as making dinner, applying bandages on your bruises, cheer you up and not throwing too many knives at you when I'm pissed.

Lastly, I wanted to thank you for caring about me, protecting me and loving me.

And also, I'm more than thankful for the family we started with Bethany and our little baby on the way. I know my experience with family is kinda fucked up but I promise that I'll do my best to be the best mother and wife possible."

The silence was golden. The priest didn't even interrupt when I said fuck and no one laughed this time. In fact, I even heard a sob or two. It was done. Dave and I looked back at the priest. We just needed him to say those official words.

"Mindy and Dave. You have been joined together by bonds beyond counting. Love and friendship. Children. And a shared vocation." At that, he winked at me and I knew that he'd figured out who we really were. "As you defend the innocent, defend each other from the slights and insults of this world. As you raise up the powerless, raise up each other so that you stand taller than you had before…"

He looked at me and winked again. God damn bastard had called me short in the middle of my wedding. That took some serious balls. I made a mental note to increase his tip.

"What God has joined, let no man or woman… or villain… break asunder. You are one. I now pronounce you husband and wife." He turned to me and said the words I'd paid him extra for. "You may now kiss the groom."

And I jumped on Dave. Well, as much as my dress would allow. I kissed him and now I was the one crying. He held me up, kissing back, and then gently set me down. We turned back to the guests and walked down the aisle. Arm in arm. Partners forever.

Our little reception was fun. We danced a bit. We talked with friends. I tossed my bouquet twice. The first time I was a little exuberant and it went straight up and stuck in the ceiling. I'd forgotten the remove the knife I'd hidden in it and that pinned it solid. Dave jumped up a few times and then finally managed to pull it down, commenting that maybe it would be safer without the knife. So I slipped the knife out and slid it down my bodice to rest next to the other one I had hidden there. Then I turned my back and threw the bouquet properly this time. Miranda snagged it out of the air with one hand and then turned to look at Marty with a challenge in her eyes. He quickly found somewhere else to be and then she laughed.

It was a fun day. But eventually even fun days have to come to an end. We finished our last toast. Marcus gave Dave a short 'Be good to my little girl' speech and then came over to stand in front of me.

"This doesn't make you an adult, you know." He said, looking at me. "Getting married I mean. It didn't magically change anything. Just like putting on that mask didn't make you Hit-Girl. It's still dependent on the choices that you make each and every day. Make good choices. Talk to each other. Especially when you don't want to. And forgive each other. Because you'll both make mistakes and you do have a bit of a temper. Your life can be dangerous. Don't let something happen without words of forgiveness having been said. And always find the joy. That's key."

I hugged him fiercely and then Dave and I went down to the limo that would take us to the airport. I knew it was silly extravagance but this time it was worth it. We would just be together. We arrived at the airport, got everything settle and checked and then boarded our flight for our honeymoon…..

And I'll tell you about that fun next time…..


End file.
